Prajit Dutta

Professor Dutta’s class is very structured and predictable. The material follows the textbook closely, and it’s important to keep up with the assigned chapters, as his lectures largely mirror them. The class itself is not particularly engaging.Professor Dutta is generally uninvolved and not very enthusiastic during lectures, which makes the course feel quite dry overall. This semester, he was absent for around five classes due to travel and required students to attend every Friday morning in November to make up for those missed days, which was inconvenient. The exams, however, are noticeably easier than Gulati or Noor, and the grading tends to be more forgiving. Make sure you have a good relationship with one or two of the TAs, as they are much more helpful in guiding through the material and exams (the midterm is almost all written by the TAs, the exam is written by both Dutta and the TAs). If you want a higher grade with a more straightforward workload, Dutta is likely the best option. However, if you are looking for a more engaging experience and want to make the most out of attending Columbia, taking the course with Gulati may be the better choice.

Professor Dutta is a very clear and engaging lecturer. He follows his book almost exactly. Understanding the material presented in lecture/in the book was necessary, but not sufficient for doing well in the class. The TAs wrote all of the problem sets and every exam question for both the midterm and final! While he is a clearly brilliant, nice guy, Dutta had very little involvement in the class apart from lecture. This meant that any questions about logistics/homework/tests were most productively directed towards TAs. Additionally, in contrast to previous years where exams were very straightforward, he decided to turn up the volume (midterm average was 48). Game theory is a difficult subject, and this class was made more stressful by the fact that one had to spend lots of time studying outside resources for sufficient practice and to fill in the gaps left by the textbook (not as in-depth as other game theory books). Overall, game theory is fun and rewarding, but I would only suggest taking this class if you are able to devote enough time to fully understand the concepts! The TAs are your best friends!

Dutta is no Elmes... and/but (depending on how you fall on her) I really enjoyed his class. I was going to take Elmes having heard what a good prof she is, but couldn't fit it in my schedule, so I signed up for Dutta, and I'm so glad I did! He's a funny guy, with a bunch of quirks. Overall, very nice -- always willing to answer questions during and after class. He would always walk in 5-10 minutes late (he came in 10 minutes late on the last day of class, then ended class early), he lectures and then pauses really deliberately to sip his coffee... he's just a funny guy. We didn't have any class after Thanksgiving because we had a few makeup classes in September. Not sure what the point of that was... but it was pretty funny. You can kind of tell he doesn't give that much of a shit about the class. But, he's very clear about the material, very straightforward. It's an easy class -- there's not a whole ton of complex math involved, it's pretty much just solving systems of equations and taking derivatives and such. If you do the problem sets and pay attention in class (supplement lecture material w/ book chapters on the same material if you want to understand it better) you should be fine on the exams. Midterm and final were easy. I rarely went to OH/recitation but the TAs were very friendly. I think it's a good foundation in Micro in that you learn all the basics, plus Dutta is…

This class was interesting, but the professor comes late everyday and does not seem to care about us. The exams are easy, as is the homework, but there is practically no curve...unlike in physics. Definitely less than 50 percent of the class got an A or A- being that the average average was a 75 and for a B+ one needed an 80.

This is the most unstructured class ever. The Internet may be new and experimental, but the class doesn't have to be. If nothing else, there should have at least been a computer in the classroom in order to navigate the net and demonstrate and illustrated points better. The professor chose to try something new, and so half the semester was wasted as students had to make worthless group presentations that caused each class to run an hour longer than it was scheduled to. The first half of the semester was micro-intensive, but Iron Dutta failed to teach those concepts and focused on game theory. The midterm then had NO GAME THEORY. The most prepared students suffered while those who were taking micro concurrently did well based on that outside knowledge. In addition, the lack of a text and failure to provide examples for problems further illustrated Dutta's lack of interest in helping the students to learn the subject. While an interesting person, he failed to provide the support the students need to succeed in that class. Finally, aside from the group presentations, he never actually discussed the Internet. WHERE WAS THE INTERNET? It is supposed to be an class about the Internet! All that was taught was models for competition, and poorly taught at that, and game theory, which seemed the focus of the course and the problem sets but excluded from the midterm. And with the second h…

As mentioned above, professor Gulati is a fantastic professor. If you were lucky enough to have him as your professor for Principles, you will be afforded a similar experience of deep economic understanding related to the real world, but in an intimate seminar setting. It has been an amazing experience and I would recommend everyone take professor Gulati's sports economics class if you are able to! 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2021 Course: ECONGU4911_001_2021_3-MICROECONOMICSSEMINAR : ECONGU4911_001_2021_3 - MICROECONOMICS SEMINAR Instructor: Sunil Gulati

i think he's one of the best/better options for principles of econ (in comparison to taking with noor, gulati, etc). very straight forward black-board teaching style, everything can be found directly in the textbook. dutta doesn't really run the class - the graduate TAs do, so make sure to go to their recitations as they write and grade all exams and problem sets. go to their exam review sessions, they hint at what's going to be on the exam. lecture is unengaging so most people don't go, it might be more effective to just go to recitation. exams are very very doable and problem sets are only a couple of questions (maybe 5-7 questions with a few parts each) that don't take more than 2 hours max. the six problem sets are essentially graded on completion and the lowest one is dropped. take for an easy, relaxed principles of econ experience

Professor Dutta uses his own book and he follows it to the word literally. This is actually wonderful for a class that could get confusing at times. His class is very organized and tests are fairly easy if you read the book, especially sections in the book that do not work out full solutions.

Professor Dutta is an amazing professor. I came into the class with a terrible experience in both Principles and Macro, and was thinking of switching majors. However, the way Professor Dutta taught this class made econ easy - or even fun from time to time. He uses very little calc, a lot of intuition and real life examples. Anyone who attends lecture can do really well even without reading the textbook (I barely ever read anything and got a 96 on the midterm). The workload is extremely light. 1 problem set per week, more or less. Very easy midterm. A final that shouldn't be too bad either. If you want an easy micro class that still teaches you all the concepts you need to know, take Professor Dutta. He is also just such a nice person.

This is the best economics class I've taken at Columbia yet. The man really knows the subject well, and has the ability to make it interesting at times. The classes are open for discussion and a sense of humor.