Took this class as a pre-req for some prospective majors and I have a meh opinion. Reading the textbook was much more helpful than the lectures (which were often rambling and covering things you weren't sure if you should take notes on or not). What really makes or breaks your experience is your TA: I had the head TA (Anderson Frailey) which helped out a lot since he was the closest to the Professor and thus could give us better advice and help regarding what would be on the exams. The midterms (there are two) are all short-answer and aren't too bad if you read the textbook and watch the Econ minutes. However, DO NOT bank on Dutch Knockout to boost your grade: the final is full of obscure concepts and was much harder than I was expecting. Overall, if you are not a big numbers person and would prefer a more qualitative econ class, then I would choose Elzinga. If you are not bothered by more quantitive analysis, then choose Santiguni.

Anything he says in lecture is worthless. Scored a D average on the midterms so I stopped going to lectures to self study; Thoroughly reading the textbook actually helped me understand econ and I got a B+ on the final for Dutch knockout. If you actually care about your grades, his teaching style and difficult exams are not worth the extra stress.

Elzinga is the best. If you're taking Econ 201, take it with him. He is extremely knowledgeable and cares about getting to know his students and being accommodating (even though he teaches 800 students). However, if you don't have any interest in economics I feel that this wouldn't be a great option for an elective. The exams are difficult and require a lot of studying. Textbook reading is also extremely important, but I usually ended up waiting to do those until right before the exam. Discussions are also helpful for doing practice questions if you have a good TA.

DO NOT LET THE FUTURE SUIT MONKEY COMM SCHOOL GOONS CONVINCE YOU ABOUT THE NATURE OF THIS CLASS. Much of UVA deifies Kenneth Elzinga for no apparent reason. He is an interesting lecturer and normal enough dude, but the structure of his class is predatory and much harder than Econ 201 at most other schools. Midterms and TA assignments are normal/manageable enough, but the final exam is much more difficult. Though there is a curve on grades at the end of the semester, the existence of a Dutch knockout is advertised at the beginning of the semester as a realistic option in case first and second midterms are not at the desired grade. This is bs. The format of the final is 100% different than the other exams and questions are much trickier. Small details in questions and random textbook information--the same textbook with which he disagrees with multiple times in lecture and does not lecture from--are used to make the dutch knockout extremely difficult. According to my other friends who have taken this same course with Santuigini, this is still the better deal, and given that this class is required for numerous majors and schools, it may be inevitable to take it. Those of you that do take it in the future--do NOT rely on the dutch knockout/// it will come back to bite you. Any time you will save not studying for the much easier midterms will not be worth the amount of time that would be needed to study for a high grade on the final exam, which rarely anyone gets over a 93 on pre-curve. Do your due diligence.

I came into this class thinking it was honestly interesting but it really wasn't at all. Sure Elzinga is very nice and has a very interesting life but his class is very confusing. His lectures are long and the graphs can get pretty confusing. It's also a very long walk to the nursing school. The textbook is interesting and I really enjoyed reading it because it gives you perspective of a lot of things but I think most of the material isn't relevant in class since Elzinga asks very tricky questions in the final. I wouldn't recommend taking this class if you're not taking a requirement.

Loved it! Workload is manageable, and consists only of a few textbook chapters throughout the semester and the occasional discussion section assignments. Lectures are not necessarily required as the bulk of the material is brought up in discussion, but they are undeniably enjoyable. Elzinga gets a lot of hate for being ambiguous at times, but it's unwarranted. Favorite class at UVA so far

Literally hated it. It gave me way more stress than needed. Make sure to use Jacob Clifford to review and if you're a first-year, make sure you read that dang textbook for everything it's worth. I would definitely recommend not saving all your work for before the exam and would say that you NEED to find friends with TA's that have practice problems for you to use. If your TA is bad and you can't do anything about it then make friends with as many people as possible in order to find practice.

TAKE SANTEGINI (or however its spelled) INSTEAD. Unless you took AP ECON in hs. This class is way too much work for a decent grade. Yes, the man is well known, but you won't have a relationship with him unless you work very hard for it, so it doesn't matter. He is not a good teacher; it seems like he just goes on rants about what he finds interesting for an hour twice a week. It's unlikely that you will have a good TA, so you will have to teach the content to yourself from the textbook (it is a helpful textbook though). There is no feedback available for practice, so the exams are often a shot in the dark. Not worth it.

Elzinga is a UVA legend solely for the fact that he has taught probably 50,000 students here for over 45 years. He's kinda funny, has some interesting life stories and seems to want to get to know his students, but his lectures are not that informative, hard to pay attention to, and his PowerPoints lack content and he doesn't post them, so it is important to go to discussion and read the textbook. The tests count for so much of your grade and are not that easy since they are only short answer. It is also kinda annoying that you don't really know what you grade is until after the final due to the curve. Overall, this class could be better but it could also be worse. #tCFfall2021

I honestly was not looking forward to this course at all because I'm not interested in econ and only took it because it was a prereq for Batten, but it honestly wasn't too bad. I definitely recommend going to lecture because Elzinga tends to emphasize whatever he thinks is important and that rarely lines up with the textbook material. The lectures correspond with certain chapters in the textbook but I would say 50% of the textbook material is completely irrelevant for the exams (at least for the two midterms - the material on the final was really random and a lot that Elzinga didn't go over). That being said, I would still read the textbook, especially before the final and/or if there is a concept you're not clear on. The only outside work for the class was to read the textbook and occasionally answer clicker questions after class. In order to get full credit for the clicker questions, you only needed to answer 15-20 correctly so you don't need to get them all right in order to get full credit. The course is graded on a 400 point scale: 15 points clicker questions, 25 points discussion section, 80 points each for two midterms, and a 200 point final exam. Elzinga also offers the Dutch knockout. The two midterms were not as hard as I expected, but all of the questions are open response which can be difficult for some people (the final exam is all multiple choice). All of the TAs will tell you not to depend on the Dutch knockout because the final scores tend to be lower than the midterm scores, but it depends on which format you're better at (the final was much harder than the two midterms this year in my opinion). Fiona Moriarty was an excellent TA, take it with her if possible!