ECON W4480

Assigned readings for each class: 1-2 research paper(s) Weekly Online Quizzes 3 exams (final, given on the last day of class, is cumulative). A significant portion of your grade will come from online quizzes and participation. Attendance counts towards your grade. Exams do not test knowledge, so make sure you participate in class a lot to guard against a low exam grade.

This class is definitely one to take Pass/Fail. The material in this course is fascinating and the readings, though sometimes long, are not too hard to understand. You learn about marriage, prostitution, and the role of women in the labor force from an economic perspective, and it is fantastic if you're looking for an elective that doesn't simply deal with theoretical models. However, professor Edlund simply does not know how to write an exam, and grading will, in turn, not reflect what you know. You have three exams over the course of the semester, and they are all ~30 question multiple choice exams [the type where getting a wrong answer will get points deducted]. The average on these exams is about a 50%, and each exam is invariably followed by a class session where people argue (relatively successfully) that certain questions on the exam should be crossed out since they bear little to no relation to what was studied/discussed in class. For example, one of the questions on the second midterm this semester asked whether a particular researcher differentiated fruit flies on the basis of a) an altered genetic code, or b) their chromosomal patterns, read: NOTHING TO DO WITH ECONOMICS Online quizzes are pretty much in the same vein as the midterms, though you only need to get 50% of the questions right to get full marks for each quiz (gee, I wonder why). Thankfully, I am doing we…

Pretty light. May seem like a lot of readings but online quizzes help you keep up with them and you can get away with skimming parts. Knowing how to read an academic paper is def a plus going in but if you have never been exposed to them before, you will learn here! 2 midterms, final

Great class great prof who has actually published a lot of great papers in the field. I was really intrigued by the topics though so am biased. This is not your traditional class on how women are underrepresented in the workplace etc but looks at more interesting topics like prostitution, sex ratios, politics, marriage, divorce. This is also not your traditional feminist class where all you need to do is champion women's rights to get a good grade. I think a lot of people are frustrated with the class because it wasn't they expected from a "gender economics" course. I will admit that if you don't give a fux about the history of marriage and divorce laws or about sex selection in different regions, this class may seem dry and unfair to you. Why? Because that's what you will have to listen to every class, because that's you will be forced to conceptually understand on the exams. By the way, the tests are not random! We cover prostitution in class and in the readings, and online quizzes... guess what there are questions on prostition on the test!! If "random" means that the exam questions weren't exactly the same as the online quizzes , then yeah I guess you could make that argument. Otherwise do the readings and go to her office and you'll be fine. If the above topics sound interesting to you, you will love the class as I did and you will probably come out with a good grade.

light. Readings for every class (a paper or two), with reading quizzes to be done online (>50% meant full credit). 2 midterms, 1 in class final, all multiple choice

Prof Edlund was a pretty engaging lecturer. The course material itself was very interesting as well, and I never felt bored. I did feel that this was more of a sociology/anthropology course than economics (not a complaint, just not what I thought I had signed up for). However, the exams were a disaster. There were 3 multiple choice question exams throughout the semester which were arbitrarily worded and assumed previous knowledge that should not have been assumed. Perhaps this would be a good class to take pass/fail.

Agree with what the previous reviewer said - Lena is VERY smart, and her lectures show that. The workload isn't extraordinary, and it's very easy to skim the articles and then sit and soak in her lectures - no problem sets, and the exams require you to analyze arguments from the articles and justify your own opinion. Loved her, and loved her course. You'll emerge from this with plenty of good fodder for cocktail party chatting.

2 midterms 15% each, class participation 20%, final exam 50%

The previous reviews are outdated and terribly misleading. Let me start by saying that I took Professor Edlund's Gender and Applied Economics course this past semester and it has not only been my favorite course in the department, but probably my favorite class at Columbia period! So... know that you're getting a somewhat biased review since I'm probably more fascinated with the material than most. Nonetheless, my fellow students all seemed to like the class as well; several others were noticeably engaged in lecture so please, trust me that this is an excellent class. The material covered in Gender and Applied Economics is incredibly interesting. We looked at contraceptives, parental investment, marriage, labor markets, politics, sex ratios ... the list goes on. As some of you may know, most of the work on family economics has been influenced by Gary Becker's work. While we did study Becker, we also read Professor Edlund's super interesting and original research that draws upon evolutionary biologists and anthropologists. Seriously, if you're even remotely interested in gender economics read her papers on prostitution and why women became left wing even if you decide not to take the class -- so interesting! While the Professor Edlund's enthusiasm and the fascinating material should be reason enough to take this class, the workload is also totally manageable and not particularl…

. The average on these exams is about a 50%, and each exam is invariably followed by a class session where people argue (relatively successfully) that certain questions on the exam should be crossed out since they bear little to no relation to what was studied/discussed in class.\r\n\r\nFor example, one of the questions on the second midterm this semester asked whether a particular researcher differentiated fruit flies on the basis of a) an altered genetic code, or b) their chromosomal patterns, read: NOTHING TO DO WITH ECONOMICS\r\n\r\nOnline quizzes are pretty much in the same vein as the midterms, though you only need to get 50% of the questions right to get full marks for each quiz (gee, I wonder why).\r\n\r\nThankfully, I am doing well in this class, but I attribute this to mostly lucky guessing on the exams. I repeat: they do not test your knowledge of economics at all.", 'Great class great prof who has actually published a lot of great papers in the field. I was really intrigued by the topics though so am biased. This is not your traditional class on how women are underrepresented in the workplace etc but looks at more interesting topics like prostitution, sex ratios, politics, marriage, divorce. This is also not your traditional feminist class where all you need to do is champion women\'s rights to get a good grade. I think a lot of people are frustrated with the class…