Ashley Timmer

Five optional PSETS, take home empirical project (harshly graded), debate (fine), take home essay (absurd), three hour long in person final exam (fine).

The grading scheme adds up to 110%, and she drops the lowest 10% from your grade. 10% is the class debate (you have to write a group position paper before the actual debate), 15% is the research project, 20% is class participation, 20% is the first in-person exam, 20% is the second in-person exam, and 25% is the take-home final (which is a paper you write over two days). There are three different debates you can choose from, with one taking place before the first midterm. If you select one of the later debates, then you will be working on studying for the second in-person exam and the position paper at the same time, and then moving straight into the take-home final. Just a heads up. There are also weekly readings that are a must-read for both the lecture and for the exams.

TLDR: DON'T TAKE HER CLASS I came into this class knowing Timmer was a harsh grader due to the CULPA reviews, but I cant even begin to explain how absurd it is. I had almost an identical situation happen to me as described in another review. Timmer flagged my final take home exam for AI (on December 31st, mind you, after course evaluations were already past due), and when I responded within seconds, asserting that I had not used AI, she took THREE MONTHS to get back to me. She threatened almost half the class with disciplinary action while stating that she does not use any AI checkers and has no formal process for identifying AI beyond feelings and "red flags." Not only is this incredibly unprofessional, but she also creates an environment of stress and anxiety for every student who even tries to make an effort. Personally, since I knew participation counted, I did my best to attend all her office hours, complete all the optional PSETS, and even ask for MORE readings, and yet her mistrust of all her students is so great that I didn't even get a timely response other than the fact that I was to be penalized for something I did not do, and I could prove that I didn't do. Getting flagged for something that can get you suspended even when you prove that there is no evidence of plagiarism is a disgrace for academics. After all of this and fighting for months, she didn't care that I…

I went into this thinking it would not be difficult because it was an elective I was taking for interest. Do NOT think that way. Similarly to what others have reviewed, Professor Timmer is a harsh grader. However, she is a lovely person and professor and an incredibly organized lecturer. She actually writes lecture outlines on the board before each lecture, so she provides a helpful way to structure notes. She also splits the class into different sections, so you can study and review using the different overviews she provides. This is a difficult class, though. Be prepared to dedicate a lot of time to it. The concepts can be very challenging, and for exams, you are expected to weave together and relate a lot of different parts of the course to answer different questions. The content is very interesting, but again, it can all be very difficult to grasp. I would recommend if you are interested in the content, but it will not be easy. I dedicated a lot of time and effort to this class, and came shy of getting an A (which is obviously okay, but I am not sure what else I should've done to get an A).

What all other reviews said. It's not light. Could be worth it, but not when being accused of using AI when you worked hard and faithfully on an assignment.

I've written a review on her before, but would like to add something important. Timmer falsely accused me and a portion of the class of AI-usage on one of the Take-Home assessments, which was an essay we had to write in three days only using course material. We also were required to share our Google Doc with her. She threatened to speak to our dean about this "AI-usage" and questioned our academic integrity. Of those accused, she either docked us a full letter grade or gave us a zero for the assignment. Multiple students challenged her on this, even involving their advisors or deans. The reasons behind her accusations were ridiculous. She said she did not sue any AI-checker but instead would look over our sources and history if she was initially suspicious and make a judgment this way. Essentially, no evidential backing whatsoever. Many were accused due to copy and pasting frequently, even if it was from the sources used, to build an outline, or simply moving around your work. I also heard of her deeming personal errors, such as mistakes in citing or sourcing as AI mistakes. This all happened a month after the assignment, and her accusation emails were sent on New Years Eve. She ended up inputting our final grades shortly after, due to grading deadlines, before any of the challenged accusations were resolved. As of writing this, I don't believe any of the falsely accused have…

I would say this class has significantly more work than other Econ electives. Although it’s nice to have many assignments to reinforce content and spread out grades, most assignments required a hefty time commitment if you wanted to succeed. I spent a lot of time preparing for debate (10% of grade), on the empirical policy memo (15% of grade), and take home final (15% of grade). It’s hard to balance because if you want to do well, you have to be very thorough and spend a lot of time on these assignments, but then you end up spending a lot more time working for this class than you would for another Econ class. Others have laid out all the various assignments.

This was more work than a typical 3 credit class, but I’d say that it’s one where you get out what you put in. I actually think professor Timmer is a great lecturer, and this has been one of my favorite economic electives. The course teaches you a lot about the concept of poverty, causes of it, along with inequality and its consequences. I thought the content was structured really well. All the lectures are recorded and professor timmer makes herself extremely available outside of class, and even more when we have assignments coming up (cumulatively 4 hours of review ahead of each exam, extra OH for empirical policy memo, very responsive over email, many office hours, etc.). If you want to succeed, you can. I actually don’t think she’s as tough of a grader as people make her out to be, but it’s not EASY to get a good grade on any assignment. What she seems to be the strictest about is AI usage.

I feel the workload exceeds that of a 3 credit class required. It is more time-consuming tha I expected. 5 Problem sets, 1 each week. Midterm exam. empirical policy memo, debate, take home exam, final. and all these memo, debate take home exam would be after midterms.

Harsh grader. Sometimes I just cannot follow her explaination at class, she does not have slides but do provides handouts with graphs. Instructions is not clear, sometimes I do not even know what she is expecting for assignmemts.