Economics · Columbia University
his class is a lot better than the other reviews say. at first he wouldn't give us any examples, but then as we warmed up to him he started to solve more problems in class and give us only relevant homework assignments. he spent one entire class period just doing problems like the problems on the homework. and his tests are extremely fair: he doesn't try and trick and doesn't even use the hardest types of problems. if you do the homework you can do really well on the tests.
This guy is clearly just going through the motions and isn't at all interested in teaching. He treats his class as a chore and is noticeably disinterested when students ask him questions. His dry, monotonous, and straight out of the text lectures are made even more dull through his mush-mouthed accent. He's lazy and uses departmental administrative protocol as an excuse to be unhelpful. He won't except late work, he won't reschedule an exam, he won't hold additional office hours, he won't have additional TA office hours. As a student you'll find that Tabakis is constantly reminding you of exactly what it is that he's just not willing to do for you. He barely managed to scrape together enogh TA's for the course at the last minute and it really shows. It's amateur night in the econ department.
As an educator, Tabakis is in my opinion the realization of a disincentive program assembled to alleviate the decidedly distended economics department from it's discomfortable load of students. Paired with fantastically purulent TA's Josh "No, but would you like me to graph out something totally unrelated?" Greenfield and Natig "I don't wanna explain it, but I can tell you the answer is 11" Mustafayev, in my opinion Tabakis' macro fulfills it's design to be the fastest, wettest colostomy grab-bag movement out of the econ major ever.
Mr. Tabakis - not prof, not dr. since he doesn't have his phd yet - is a disgrace to the teaching profession. he doesn't care, he doesn't try. The other reviews say he reads the text - but you can't quite appreciate how literally this is true until you are in class, your mind numbed every second. The text, by the way, is unhelpful because it includes no worked problems and doesn't do much with equations until it asks you to use them. If you can take macro with another professor, absolutely do so.
When I registered for this class, I was already aware of Mr. Tabakis. Unfortunately, I decided not to listen and try my best with this so called "EASY TO PASS" prof. I regreted it 100%. Not only I see the whole class reaching depths of confusion, but what angers me the most is that I won't be ready for my other classes that follows this one. I expect good professors, this is not free education or a visit to the bookstore to buy what some other student refers as "Tabakis is a book on tape." I might repeat the course. I heard he's back for Summer and feel pity for those students.
I don't know why all these people are complaining. Sure the man is very dry and teaches straight out of the textbook. But who cares? Since Sala-I-Martin was on leave, there were no exciting professors with whom to take macro. Tabakis gives you the necessary tools of Macro (cause he "reads" the textbook for his lectures) and his curve is nice and generous and you end up with a decent grade at the end of the course. He's kind of anal about handing in problem sets on time and getting regrades on the midterm--but so what? If you never show up to class, you won't miss anything--and that's a plus.
Worst Prof. I ever encounter!! Don't waste your time and brains. I know lots of people who leave the classroom like walking zombies. He's dull, arrogant and won't do the effort to teach.
This teacher is probably the worst teacher I have ever had in my entire life. He is unhelpful, doesn't teach, and is only there to be a puppethead in front of the class. You can tell when in a class of 90 students at most 35 are in class at any given day. He obviously hates his job so I don't understand why he would even want to do something like this in the first place. I'm sorry for the people who have to take his class this semester. I remember overhearing a student asking him for a recommendation -- he in the beginning claimed that since it was a lecture class he didn't know him well, etc. etc. and toward the end he just said "I don't have time. Maybe you can write it and I'll sign it or something." THE worst excuse for a teacher ever. Please avoid him.
Please do not waste your time. You might as well never go to class. I made the mistake of going to them all and in not a single one did he introduce something outside of what I read in the book (by the way, I thought the book was very good). He is not particularly interesting. He is pretentious and you can tell he feels like he is wasting his time. I went to one recitation. The TA was good, but the hour that I spent listening to him talk about the problem set was better spent doing the problem set by myself, so I never went back. Overall, the class had a lot of potential to be good, but failed miserably. There was little to no interesting discussion in class, though macroeconomics can be one of the more interesting topics in economics. I have a feeling that I will not remember anything about that class in a month. Look elsewhere.
oh my. to quote a friend of mine in the class, the verb "to teach" does not apply to tabakis. in greek, Chrystomos means something like "goldenmouth" - that's just irony there. tabakis reads out of the book, making the already vague text even harder to understand with his ridiculously thick accent and no intent on explaining the material. i heartily recommend avoiding this dude if possible - if you want to learn the subject that is.