Edward Steinberg

He started the class with two jokes about how boring economics is. Maybe I have a bad sense of humor in not finding them funny, or maybe I'm right to think that the job of the instructor for an introductory course in any field is to attempt to inspire some enthusiasm for a field. Either way, this joke might have been funny once or twice, and some of his jokes actually were, but once he ran out of original jokes (which didn't take long) and started recycling the same jokes over and over again, this class became increasingly painful to sit through. He even joked that he took a six month course on how to make Principles of Economics interesting and learned nothing from it, but honestly, I wish he could've replaced some of his jokes with interesting content that might inspire us to take more economics courses. As I read through the positive reviews, I am starting to wonder if he taught the summer session differently than how he teaches during the year. To be fair, I am not the typical student who enrolls in this course, as I am a SEAS student who had a significant background in economics yet had to take this course due to a technicality. Here's my biggest problem with the class: I've been familiar with professors slanting an entry level course towards their personal or research interests, which sometimes adds a nice touch to a course, but Professor Steinberg took this to a new ext…

I enjoyed Steinberg's economics class. In fact, I took Principles expecting to hate econ but appreciate the information. Steinberg's lectures were clear, informative and engaging. Some of his jokes were funnier than others, but they all helped me remember the information and took the edge off of a late evening econ course. I am now majoring in economics and have taken intermediate micro and macro. I felt completely prepared in both courses. I'd even say that the strong foundation Steinberg gave me in his intro course gave me a leg up over some classmates. The keys to Steinberg's course are keeping up with the material and listening to what he says in lecture. If something is important, Steinberg will emphasize it and repeat it. I understand that some were not happy with his exams, but if you go to class, it's not hard to gauge what he will ask for.

I would avoid this class if at all possible. Steinberg is not a terribly engaging professor, so you're inclined not to go to class. The problem with that, however, is that his exams are based solely on the lectures. And the exams include at least 6 11-point true/false questions that are inherently tricky. People in this class will either do really well or really poorly (the grade distribution for As on the exams was about the same as for Cs). I would take Prinicples with Gulati.

Professor Steinberg is a pretty funny guy. He knows his stuff and is an amusing lecturer to say the least. You definitely learn the concepts pretty well as long as you follow his lectures with the readings in the book. His exams only cover what he says in class and not the book, so it's a good idea to take notes down seeing as how he'll pull all his midterm questions from what he says. His midterms are okay if you listened attentively in class however the 6:10-7:25 timeslot might turn some people down. The class was curved at the end but not sure how. Take his class if you're looking for little to no work, however be warned, it is extremely easy to mess up on the midterms or final.

What I found in professor steinberg was a serious economist and a pretty likable guy but a scattered and inconsistent teacher. Lectures go all over the place, with Steinberg going off on a tangent about his days at the Fed in the middle of an explanation about a key concept. However, I found his stories and dry (read: awkward and jewish) sense of humor enjoyable. The tests seemed more concerned with arbitrarily picked minutia and definitions than overall economic understanding. This means if you took good notes and memorized them you were pretty much assured a good grade, but if you missed a class, reading from the textbook or asking his TA's was pretty much useless. This expressed itself in the oddest grade distribution I've ever seen, with pretty much equal numbers of As, Bs, and failing grades. Review sessions pointless. Little to do with what's going on in class. Overall he's no Gulatti, and you'd learn more from a few issues of the economist, but Steinberg isn't too bad of a proff. to have.

I think it's safe to say that most of Steinberg's class would have liked to be in Gulati's class instead, but it served the purpose of fulfilling the Principles requirement for econ majors relatively painlessly. His dry sense of humor and sarcastic jokes added some personality to the course, which he admitted is probably not the most exciting class at Columbia. He also used to work for the Federal Reserve, so he brings in lots of interesting articles and publications that relate to the textbook material, though this information was certainly not tested. Plus, the exams weren't cumulative, so only a small amount of material was covered on each test.

Prof. Steinberg is a very easy-going and entertaining lecturer (he has a witty/cheesy self-deprecating kind of humour). However, this is sometimes distracting as he often jumps from topic to anecdotes to lame puns and back. I would say that his lecturing style is almost like graduate-level, as he doesn't have slides and hardly writes on the board. I went to recitation just to get a more comprehensive overview of the material. He seems to focus more on theoretical than practical problems, and since he used to be (I think) a statistician or something, he's enthusiastic about ways of collecting data. He's very open to class participation, even in a class of around 200 kids, and was willing to answer questions at the end of class.

Unfortunately, Professor Steinberg thought that the Pupin lecture hall was his weekly stand-up comedy stage. Avoid him at all costs.

I personally really liked Professor Steinberg. I found him to be clear and for his lectures to be engaging, for the most part. These aren't particularly difficult topics in this class, but he explained them very well. He was clearly especially interested in the basic macroeconomics stuff that comes at the end of the course, and these were his best lectures. He's pretty funny (sort of dry, off-the-cuff jokes often), and while the class time (6:10-7:25) is brutal in my mind, he made it OK. I wouldn't hesitate to take him again.

This guy really knows his stuff coming from his background working for the Fed and all, but makes the information basically approachable. A little difficult, but a pretty fair teacher. On the first midterm, the class did worse than he expected and therefore the next midterm (there were 2) he added 5 points to all of our grades. He can be a little bland and boring and his same continual jokes don't get any funnier throughout the semester, but overall a very fair class. It's a good idea to get a good TA and go to all the sessions.