Marc is so funny and I would definitely recommend taking his class! His slides are very clear and well-organized.

Having (almost) completed this course as a first year with no economics background, I would HIGHLY recommend taking this course with Professor Santugini. I'm not sure if he made this semester easier (averages on the two midterms were 88 and 86) but the class is manageable. A huge plus to this class in my opinion is that there is essentially no outside reading necessary (do not buy the textbook). The take home parts can be a bit tricky, but go to the TA office hours right before they are released and you should be okay. Marc is such an enthusiastic professor who really loves what he teaches, and connects most lectures to a real life example. A lot of these reviews sound daunting, but this was probably my easiest class my first semester here. I wouldn't go as far as to say this class is an "easy A" but if you're willing to attend lecture, do the practice problems and homework, and study for tests, I would say an A is certainly manageable.

I know taking this class with Elzinga is a UVA bucket list, but if you take it with Santiguini you'll be fine. The tests are moderate and don't have high averages, but the multiple choice final is SO easy and will dutch-knockout your entire grade. If you don't care about taking the class with Elzinga, take it with Marc. Also definitely do NOT bother spending money on a textbook, and if you get the concepts you can stop going to class once you meet the clicker threshold (all the lectures are online).

This class wasn't microeconomics...it was tedious math. I didn't feel like I learned econ, because every test I was worried about if I made one calculation wrong or if I forgot to label one part of the line. That shouldn't be how econ is taught. It helps that you don't have to read a textbook, but I feel like Santugini's math based style is arguably worse than a regular microeconomics class.

The way he teaches econ is VERY unique, so you will be unable to get help from the internet and the textbook. Midterms were difficult with problems that were unlike any of the example problems or homeworks. I have never taken a class with Elzinga but all my friends who had him had a much easier time in Microecon than I did. I seriously regret not taking this course under Elzinga.

TL;DR Santugini is a very nice man, however his style of teaching is very quick and not necessarily intuitive to the average person not looking to go into comm/econ.

Santugini (Marc) is such a great and respectable professor. Every lecture was clear and easy to follow and he always posted his notes and slideshows on Collab. He is also a nice guy who will drop anything to help his students. In short - this is probably the most well-organized class I have ever taken. Workload each week is extremely light. Now, I got an A- in the class. In order to get an A, I honestly think you need to never disregard doing homeworks and practice problems each week. I slacked off on a few of these in the semester and it definitely hurt my path to an A. In short, this class is very manageable and Marc is a perfect professor for it. You also must put in good work to get an A in this class. There also is a huge curve at the end, but do not rely on this.

You can tell Santugini is really passionate about econ, but about half way through the semester it becomes really hard keep up with his pace during lecture. Also, for some reason he seems to get bad TAs so I didnt rely on mine at all for help. I ended up just going back through his slides after class to teach myself a lot of the information just because I couldnt keep up in class. For the midterm exams, there is a take-home part which is really difficult bc there are a lot of questions that can't be answered with just knowledge from the lectures, but the in class part is very similar to practice sets and pretty fair so it balances out the take-home. The final isn't a piece of cake, but if you study the slides, practice problems, and clicker questions an A is manageable.

While Professor Santiguini is a nice guy, I do not recommend that you take his class. He lectures at a pace that is too quick to follow (most students in my discussion learned the material from the TA) and the only test that he gave that was truly fair was the final; the two midterms included problems that were above most students' ability level.

I know this review is a year late, but I'm very happy I chose to take ECON 2010 with Professor Santugini.

It was through this class that I started strongly considering majoring in Econ, although I had already taken ECON 2020 the previous semester. From what I've heard, Elzinga's style of teaching Econ is pretty theoretical. During last year's fall semester though, I noticed Santugini's approach is more mathematical through his use of linear equations and graphs to outline examples for supply and demand. Being that math has been my favorite subject for quite a while, I definitely liked his approach more. He also gave us examples for practice due by the end of each week that would be reviewed during our discussions. It'd be a stretch to say this class is completely easy, as the first midterm was definitely tougher than the second and there are always nuances in drawing your supply-and-demand graphs based off factors such as taxes. Plus though, you always have the option for Dutch knockout in the end to boost your grade. All in all, it was pretty useful and manageable and emerged as my favorite class for the semester.

Professor Santugini himself is very approachable and clearly wants you to succeed in his class. Go to his office hours as he will answer any questions that may not be covered deeply in lectures. From his examples, he can describe anything difficult in the clearest terms possible to make it easier to answer. And if you're considering studying in Econ, I recommend you enroll in his ECON 3010 class as a major requirement.

The tests are fairly hard, and he has a take home portion and an in-class portion. His lectures are organized differently and he uses an old-school projector, so it can be a little difficult to get used to. He is very open and friendly, and makes it easy to get the amount of clicker questions you need to get full participation. You need to go to lecture to do well, because the textbook is not used at all in this class.