Review:
Dan Richards is a horrible, horrible professor. I mean, we all knew he didn't care about his class or his students, but he could at least pretend like he did! Where to start:
1) His lectures basically have nothing to do with what's on his problem sets
2) His problem sets basically have nothing to do with his tests
3) His tests basically have nothing to do with anything
4) The things he puts online to "help" students are ridden with errors and can often actually HURT a student's understanding of something (believe me, this happened to me and other people several times)
5) His TA's all have different answers to give for the problem sets - which often all don't add up to Richards' answers
6) He didn't even hand out evaluation forms! I had to use this website because I had no other option!

AVOID THIS GUY LIKE IT'S YOUR JOB.

Workload:
-5 problem sets (you won't really know how to do them if you don't have friends in the class or a "TA."
-2 midterms and a final - Really, you shouldn't even be reading this review this far, I should've convinced you not to take him already

review a class you took with Daniel Richards - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
The professor showed some concern for students' progress and understanding--one concept was so confusing that during the following class, he retaught the entire concept. He did not try at all to hide his hate for macroeconomics. He was very funny, and experimental "clickers" both helped to reinforce the mathematical concepts and made the class more interesting.

Workload:
The four or five problem sets can be tricky but doable if you do them in groups. The reading is very easy and kind of interesting--some chapters are only ten pages long.

review a class you took with George Norman - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Rambling, unorganized lectures. Abdullah would sometimes throw in jokes randomly to endear himself or to get people's attentions, but they got old. I skipped the majority of the lectures and just read my textbook and did well in the class.

Workload:
Two or three chapters a week, no other assignments. Also, a weekly recitation with 10 quizzes spread out over the semester.

review a class you took with Siddiq Abdullah - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
If you want to enjoy learning economics, take this class. He is an excellent orator; his presentations are clear and easy to understand. He sounds like Sean Connery (he's Scottish) but bears no physical resemblance. Very well-dressed, though.

Workload:
Slow and steady wins the race as far as work pace is concerned. Not so much memorization, but you need to comfortable with concepts and simple math. You either understand it or you don't, not tricky. Go to office hours and talk to TA's because there will moments when you get stuck. Do not try to cram because this course is cumulative. Reading the text enhances your understanding (the book has up-to-date examples and can be an enjoyable read). Normal workload. Psets help you ace tests. Exams quite reasonable if you study.

review a class you took with George Norman - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Professor Norman is perhaps one of the best teachers I have encountered at Tufts. His lectures follow power point slides which are clear and concise and are typically posted on Blackboard well before the class in which they are used. He closely follows the textbook as well, so between the slides and the book it is completely unambiguous what he will be looking for you to understand come test time.

As for the tests, they are straightforward, with class averages usually in the low 80s. They consist of a handful of multiple choice, around five or so, a few problems to be worked out and occasionally a short essay or two. Attending recitation helps - he generally gives the TAs practice tests to go over in the session right before a test that very closely resemble the questions and format that will appear.

You do not need to be an Economics major to enjoy this class. Professor Norman has a clear desire to provide his students with a conceptual understanding of economics as opposed to covering as many chapters in the book as possible. He is more than willing to take time to answer questions, even in the middle of lectures. Frequently communicates with the class over e-mail, even going as far to provide hints at problem set questions that seem to be confusing many students.

Expect to cover micro - "small scale" topics including supply and demand, monopolies, and price discrimination - in greater detail than macro - "big picture" things like inflation, job growth, and fiscal policy.

Workload:
Workload is really up to the student. Professor Norman requires very little, only assigning four or five problem sets throughout the entire semester. The power point slides are clear enough that it is possible to go by them alone if you are pressed for time otherwise, but the textbook can be rather helpful since nine times out of ten the chapters contain exactly the same material as the slides only in more depth.

The biggest challenge in this class for most people will be the hurdles involved with wrapping your mind around the very basics and learning to think like an economist. Thankfully, Professor Norman is very helpful in this regard and as mentioned earlier is more than willing to assist and answer any questions you may have. The textbook is also very useful, but if you can understand what is going on without it you probably will not have to open it all semester long.

review a class you took with George Norman - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Professor Norman is a wonderful, wonderful lecturer. He makes econ so interesting and he has a good sense of humor, which always helps with big intro courses like EC5. His lectures are easy to understand and he does a great job of explaining the material. Econ was never a faovrite subject of mine, but I love this class. Highly recommended!

Workload:
Readings from the text, but his powerpoint slides cover the important things you need to know from the text. If you study both the slides and the reading, you'll do fine in this class.

review a class you took with George Norman - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Professor Richards has a dry sense of humor which some find annoying, though I happened to like it. He's a pretty nice guy and a good lecturer. He posts the PowerPoint shows on Blackboard, but don't rely on them to understand the material, going to class is pretty important here.

Workload:
Problems used in recitations and problem sets are often on the tests. The big problem with this class is that the assignments don't always reflect the information covered, you'll get some stuff on a test that you've never seen before. Go to the lectures, recitations and TA office hours.

review a class you took with Daniel Richards - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Professor doesn't do much. He doesn't use lecture notes, so my TA often didn't know what we talked about. He teaches straight from the book.

Workload:
Pretty light. Approximately 25 pages per class.

review a class you took with Siddiq Abdullah - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
My opinion: Do not take this class.

Workload:
Must read textbook because you won't get much out of lectures. Multiple choice questions, only some of which were covered in textbook or lecture.

review a class you took with Siddiq Abdullah - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Professor Richards is the worst professor I have had at Tufts yet. He has absolutely no concern for students progress and he is virtually impossible to get a hold of outside of class. He often tries to make jokes about drinking to relate to students, but after a while, his jokes get boring and old. I often felt extremely lost and ALONE in this class since the TA's were the only source of help and seeing as they never came to class and weren't even Econ majors, they were not helpful at all.

Workload:
Richards lectures often were very different from the textbook readings. About 1-3 Chapters were assigned per week, but in order to learn the information on the test, you didn't really have to do much of the readings. There are 5 Problem Sets, which weren't too hard and 2 Midterms + a Final. The midterms and final had some ridiculous, ambiguous questions and were graded impossibly. Yet, Richards does scale the final grade so it isn't too hard to get at least a B. Still, I didn't learn much from Richards...everything I learned was on my own.

review a class you took with Daniel Richards - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Teacher is not involved with class - does not respond to emails, therefore need to have a good TA. Richards makes the class hard and then does not curve the grades. Seems like a good guy, but would not take any class from him again.

Workload:
2 midterms
1 final
5 graded problem sets

review a class you took with Daniel Richards - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
This professor is never available to students. His TAs do all of the grading. Basically all he does is show up and give a powerpoint presentation.

Workload:
5 problem sets
2 midterms
1 final

Straightforward.

review a class you took with Daniel Richards - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Prof. Richards obviously understands his material and does a pretty good job explaining concepts to the class. He has a very dry sense of humor and makes a lot of references to drinking... He's hard to get a hold of and doesn?t encourage students to talk to him during office hours, but the TAs are willing to help with any questions. He does a pretty good job explaining concepts. He usually uses PowerPoint presentations and some economics ?games? to explain concepts (the presentations are posted on blackboard). He calls on one or two students each class to answer questions each class, and takes points off if that person isn?t in class.

Workload:
Not too much work - problem sets of about 10 questions every two weeks or so.

review a class you took with Daniel Richards - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Although professor Abdullah obviously has his stuff down, he is not very good at teaching it. He was unclear, repetitive, and rambling. His examples were not very well explained, and there was no way to practice what we had learned because there were no problem sets. At the beginning of the semester he did recommend which problems we should try, but after that he seemed to get lazy. When we asked for problem sets he told us to "do the problems at the back of each chapter," which was not very helpful considering their sheer volume. He did not seem terribly concerned with out understanding, harping on some simple points and then skimming over details. If you have to take the class, I strongly recommend reading the textbook before going to class, because attendance is literally worthless otherwise. Abdullah does not teach, he skims over the reading in an inefficient manner. In fact, by the end of the semester I had ceased attending at all, choosing to read the book instead, which took less time, was clearer, and got me an A- anyway.

Workload:
There was a medium amount of work, but it was well worth doing since it was the only way to learn the material. Trust me, it is not possible to speed read the book though, you must break it up and read one chapter or maybe two at a time. Do not expect to sit down and read ten chapters the night before the exam. There were four exams and five recitation quizzes. The exams were not terrible, although the multiple choice questions could be obscure at times. The quizzes were a joke.

review a class you took with Siddiq Abdullah - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Siddiq is a lot of fun as a professor, explaining basic economics by comparing it to marriage and making up a rap. By nature of the class and the amount of material he needs to cover, he cannot possibly go over all the material, but he covers a nice outline of it in class. I would say don't go to class if you aren't caught up on reading, just because you'll be very confused; however, class does help, in the grand scheme of things. I never tried to reach Siddiq outside of class, so I am not sure how available he is.

Workload:
MUST read all chapters of book - not too difficult, but takes time. No psets, but he suggests doing some. It is helpful to do problems in the back of each chapter before tests, but, again, he does not assign them. Recitation is optional, but tests are given in them, and my TA was accessible and helpful.

review a class you took with Siddiq Abdullah - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
I found it very hard to concentrate through Professor Abdullah's lectures. He seemed very repetitive about fairly simple concepts. Occasionally he tried to be funny which got the attention of the class for a short period of time, but overall he was fairly boring. He did know a lot about the subject matter and might have been more interesting for someone majoring in economics.

Workload:
There were no specific assigned readings, or papers. We had five quizzes and five tests. The quizzes added up to equal a test grade.

review a class you took with Siddiq Abdullah - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
This class offers a solid overview of economics. Abudullah brings knowledge, engaging lectures, and humor into the classroom. My main problem with the class was the TA dissertation sessions, which can be a hit or miss. But as a professor, Abdullah is quite straightforward and fair. I would definitely take a course with him again in the future.

Workload:
The workload was what one would expect from an intro class.

review a class you took with Siddiq Abdullah - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Professor Richards is a great professor. He makes the class interesting using various activities and with his (maybe a little overused) dry sense of humor. All his lectures are online however he has the class list and calls on random people every now and then, and if you're not there when your name is called it affects your grade slightly. The class is a basic introduction into economics and I learned a lot.

Workload:
There's a fair amount of reading but it is very manageable and you can even get away with not doing all of it, just skimming it. A problem set is due every 2 weeks or so. The problem sets can be tricky at times but you can ask TA's or classmates for help. Two midterms and a final. All in all the material can be fairly challenging but the workload isn't really that bad.

review a class you took with Daniel Richards - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Good teacher, somewhat entertaining and in occasions funny. His lectures were well organized, but when PowerPoint failed to work, he seemed a bit lost. An enjoyable class and a good teacher. Very recommendable.

Workload:
Tough problem sets every 2 weeks, but if you are lucky and your TAs are good, they are always willing to help. Richards is practically unreachable and never answers E-mails, and asks students not to call his office. Not an excruciatingly hard class.

review a class you took with Daniel Richards - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Pretty easy course. Tests were pretty well structured around problem sets and lectures. All notes are online.

Workload:
5 problem sets, two midterms, and a final. No reading

review a class you took with Daniel Richards - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
The professor is awful. His lectures are jumbled up, and he is not as "easy" as he was before.. or so I heard. The quizzes are on things that he has never touched on, or if he did.. very briefly. You are basically learning from the book more than from him. His lectures are pretty worthless. Trust me, you deserve a much better professor than this after paying so much money to come here. There are also a lot of people in class who have taken Econ before and are trying to get an easy A in an intro class, which is why exams are not scaled very much.

Workload:
No problem sets whatsoever. Not very math-oriented. Which means that when you learn something, you can't apply it to anything. You don't get practice. You read about it and you forget. And when the exams come you have to read the textbook all over again because you forgot about it already. One time, he tried to cover four chapters in one lecture, and we all ended up reading about 5 chapters in a week. And the chapters are pretty long too. He is trying to cover the entire textbook in one semester.. and it's just insane. AWFUL. Just stay away. But if you are stuck with him, pick Jehan as your TA.

review a class you took with Siddiq Abdullah - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Richards is the man. He uses a LOT of PowerPoint, but it's nice because all his notes are online. Sometimes the lectures can get boring, but his dry sense of humor and jokes about alcohol keep things interesting. The class is enormous, but he still tries to have some sort of a relationship with his students, which is nice. Make sure you read the book because he doesn't always do the best job explaining things!

Workload:
Not too bad. Only five problems sets, which were long and a little difficult, but definitely worthwhile when it came to test time. Two midterms and a final. The tests aren't bad, but he does throw in some tricks, so always read every question carefully!

review a class you took with Daniel Richards - help your classmates make informed decisions!