He is mostly interested in historical style essays more than analytical. Attendance was 50% of your grade

All his classes follow the same structure There are 4 aspects to grading 1 Attendance 2 Quizzes are random & sometimes announced - they are 4 questions MC and T/F always based on the daily read 3 Write-Ups based on the lecture material 4 Research papers 2500-3000 words 7 sources. Go to class, take notes and read. Amazing Prof and easy A if you try.

Ebensteins classes all follow a very specific and predictable pattern and getting an A in one is as easy as memorizing the following: do the readings and go to class. Doing those 2 things will give you ALL the information you need to do every write up (3 in the whole course) and give you so many paper topic ideas (2 in the course.). Great professor

Professor Ebenstein is a gem in the Econ department! Unique, lecture-based class. If you have an interest in the topics discussed, then the class is fairly engaging and refreshing. You get out what you put in. Decent amount of assigned reading and writing. If you have the opportunity, would recommend taking at least one of his courses!

This guy is the goat.

The professor could do better in making the class interesting: His lectures are somewhat disorganized, and the lack of ppt presentation made it hard to review key material. The worst part of this course is the TA, who grade everything. My TA always procrastinated and lack the skills needed to grade the write-ups properly. Don't take the course.

Professor Ebenstein is a charming instructor. People interested in history (and hating math) will surely find their interest in his lectures. However, the homework grading by TAs is remarkably slow. They don't give you any reasons for getting a low score. Please give this extraordinary professor more TAs.

For the returning Fall2021 quarter he put emphasis on in class pop quizzes as attendance for"push factor"during final grading. So definitely not covid friendly. Took absence of students personally. His TA gives out random B- and B's to keep you in a certain range. Easy A if you skim through the readings and attend. But its -VERY- boring.

super nice and interesting guy! lots of reading and 500 word weekly writing assignments. 2 papers, 2500 words, and a written final. honestly you can skim the readings and do well, no section, lectures can get boring and rambly but he's great about answering questions in OH and is very accommodating. kind of feels like a history class!

The professor rambles on and on about random events that sometimes relate to economic history. It's kind of interesting as a podcast, but you have to do a 500 word write up every week. No one knows how the write up is graded, but the TA's give out 70s to 80s on random write ups with no explanation. Theres also two 2500 essays. Stay away.

Ebenstein is a pretty chill guy but his class is pretty disorganized. Most of his lectures are just him talking for an hour and he seems to get off topic a lot. His assignments are vague but they're not too hard.

He's a chill prof, accessible after the lecture if you want to discuss with him. Weekly 2 page paper and two-term papers so the workload is not terrible. Lot's of interesting ideas and his book is very accessible to those that do not read many econ books. Can sometimes be disorganized, but who isn't during the 'rona? Great for non-mathy econ peeps

Lectures are very disorganized over zoom. He's very smart but sometimes rambles on about a particular topic. We get weekly writing assignments the TA's barely grade. Every week I get the same exact grade no matter how much work I put in. Definitely would not recommend during rona as the class is very disorganized

If you are a "normal" econ student (likes math, numbers, equations), DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. If you're someone like me who hates Econ as it's normally taught and wants to know about policy, history, and how econ has actually developed and works in the real world, TAKE THIS CLASS. Ebenstein is a weird, eccentric breath of fresh air. Love this guy.

40 pages of writing thru quarter, so f you aren't good at writing, don't take. Lectures are incoherent, rambling, tangential, and he jumps around between time periods so you're left confused ( no slides, just him talking to the camera). Also, some things he lectures aren't even historically accurate. Easy class but extremely boring.

Ebenstein is the most boring lecturer I've ever had to listen to. He just rambles for an hour straight with no structure to his lectures. To make it worse, his lectures have nothing to do with the 2200 word research essayS we have to write for him. He just makes us tune in to indoctrinate us with his unfounded beliefs about random stuf. Don't take.

Took 113B in person with him last quarter, it was pretty interesting and an easy-ish A. If classes are still via zoom DO NOT TAKE HIM unless you like to write. He replaced his attendance grade with a weekly paper. Not a super hard class, but not interesting at all and lots of busy work. There are much better econ classes, especially online.

Really boring class especially because his teaching style is super old school! Hes a really nice guy and is always willing to talk to you but the class is just way too boring. Its not as hard as other econ classes but if you need an econ elective I would personally take 106 with Benelli

foo is mad boring

Ebenstein presents a unique, valuable, and applicable perspective on economics while also remaining open minded to considering opposing views in class or office hours. Unfortunately, his lectures can sometimes be a bit poorly organized or repetitive.

This is the most useless class I've ever taken. He held lectures that weren't useful at all, but then forced everyone to come because he'd pass around an attendance sheet in an entire lecture hall. He would lecture on a book and get things wrong, and his "slides" were just his hand-written outline projected onto a screen.

MWF at 8am was rough, especially with pop quizzes. Pretty predictable when they will come, often Fridays. Just skim the readings and you will be fine. Doesn't grade too hard and is a nice guy

If you are an econ major at ucsb and you see any history of econ class by ebenstein, TAKE THE CLASS. Ebenstein is a friendly, forgiving, easy grader and you learn a lot from the course too! There are random pop quizzes based on readings that have obvious answers, not meant to trick you. There is 1 midterm, 1 final (non-cum), and 1 final paper.

Ebenstein is a great guy and really cares about what he teaches. He'll often touch on current events and isn't afraid to give his opinion, while acknowledging that others may feel differently. I have definitely taken a lot more from this class than others.