Gold
Silver[ECON BC3041] The Theoretical Foundations of Political Economics
Departments: Economics
Professors: Andre Burgstaller, David Weiman, and Carl Wennerlind
If I learned anything in this class, it was that lectures were an entire waste of time. He is all over the place with philosophers and equations that you will never use. If you're not taking this for the econ core, don't do it. Also, it's not so much a political economics class as much as it is a philosophical economics class... I declare a misnomer. I skipped two weeks of lecture and I was totally fine on the final. The only reason to go to class is to respond to emails and maybe get a gist of what he's talking about. But from there, I learned all of the material through wikipedia or google searches and recitation.
Everything Burgstaller takes three hours a week to teach, the TA (I had Jessamyn Blau) will teach in one. Go to recitation!! Not only will she clarify Burgstaller's rambling, she will tell you what is or is not important. Also, she grades the papers, so get your drafts looked at. She's a great resource for the class. The course is additionally integrated with the Barnard Writing Fellows Program, so after you hand in a draft, you have to meet with a writing fellow (you schedule your meeting during class).
For the final, you get review questions for each philosopher-- study off them. The entire exam is questions from that.
Overall, the class is not bad; only a lot of work before the papers and final.
Two essays and a final
Very, very, very boring. The reading is boring, the professor is boring, studying for the final is so boring you consider shooting yourself. Agreed, it's tough to make Smith, Marx, Ricardo, etc. interesting but there has to be someone out there who's able to make the stuff a little more bearable than Weiman. He drones on and on in the most awful monitone while he sketches confusing little diagrams on the board. When it comes time to write your three papers you'll have no idea where to begin...even if you can stand to pay attention in class the books are so opaque that you'll have no idea what the authors are getting at. To his credit, however, Weiman makes a real effort to make himself accessible to students. He'll spend hours helping you with your papers. He's also pretty reasonable about the material covered on the final.
A fair amount of reading, three five page papers (which must be reviewed by one of Barnard's "writing tutors") and a final.
Although he did make an effort to disguise his own personal opinions on the subject matter, his standpoint was fairly clear. As far as papers were concerned, I think he happens to be one of those teachers who only gives A's to people who tell them what they want to hear. It seems there is little room for creativity. In some senses this is beneficial, because it is clear how you should write your paper, however, in at other times it is problematic. I will personally never take another class with this man again. I would advise the same if you value a teacher who respects his/her responsibilities as a professor and who respects your responsibilities as a student.
Completely reasonable. For the most part, I have nothing to complain about as far as material is concerned.
This is a pretty easy class. You don't need to do the readings if you go to class. You read Smith, Marx, and Keynes. But Carl loves Marx, so he spends most of the semester talking about Marx...make sure you write what Carl thinks on the papers...he doesn't hide his political views at all. Short papers, only about 4-5 pages each, and they're basically summaries of what the thinkers said. Not a bad class, enjoyable, and Carl's really nice and approachable. Easy A if you write what Carl wants you to write.
3 short papers (4-5 pages, and one on each economist), final, short presentation (which essentially counts for nothing)
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