Sunil Gulati

Please believe the negative reviews about this class. I found this class to be the most difficult in my undergraduate career; (note, I took college-level microeconomics and macroeconomics in high school.) Before taking econ 101 with Gulati, so many people warned me (both on CULPA and elsewhere) about how horrible this class is. I didn't listen. Below, I've detailed the consequence. Candidly, I think a lot of people go into this class with an interest in economics. But they come out hating it. That's why Gulati teaches – not to inspire passion, but to weed you out and make sure you know that you are nothing special. In fact, he makes it clear, both through his demeanor and instruction, that he thinks he is the smartest person in the room. He, for some reason I cannot for the life of me explain, encourages his students to participate but simultaneously demeans, ridicules, and dismisses their questions and ideas in class. I understand Gulati has an impressive background that is worth praise. But professors are supposed to build their students up – not tear them down. I often found his comments about current events to be inappropriate and unneeded (and he tests on random current events/politics/geography-related topics on his PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS tests). His lectures are okay. I found them to keep me awake, not because they were particularly interesting, but because I was scare…

DO NOT TAKE ECON WITH ANYONE ELSE. Your final grade is curved across all the classes so it doesn't matter who you take the class with. Gulati is the most engaging professor I've ever had. He is truly so passionate about economics and every single one of his classes made me fall in love with econ (I decided to major in economics after this). He does cold call which can be scary at times but Noor also cold calls so it isn't specifically Gulati's class. If you are even remotely interested in economics, take this class pass/fail and I promise you, you won't regret it.

Going into this class with no econ experience while half the class is out of finance bros, I felt like it was harder than some of my STEM classes. His lectures were great and was very clear, but his expectations for the class was very high. The pop quizzes (that weren't really "pop" in our semester) push you to study before class, preparing you for the 1 midterm and final. Because of it, I felt like it was the only class that I was really prepared in. He likes to interact with the class a lot and has a lot of resources and extra outside of class reviews (that was sort of helpful).

I was really worried going into this class - hearing about Prof. Gulati's polarizing personality, cold calling, and early morning classes, but I REALLY enjoyed it! He's my favorite lecturer/professor at Columbia so far! The course content is definitely very hard, but I think Prof. Gulati explains it pretty well and you're expected to go into the lectures with knowledge from reading the textbook (READ THE TEXTBOOK - IT IS SO NECESSARY!!!). He is a VERY strong lecturer and just a really cool guy. I get how he can come off as arrogant, but I think he's just someone who's very confident and very unafraid to show it and has the experience and knowledge to back it up.

Quite possibly the best professor in the economics department. Most definitely the best out of my limited sample size thus far. Sure, you've got to attend basically every class at 8:40, but his lectures are incredibly engaging. He also makes a real effort to get to know his students, which is something that I feel like most professors, even those with small discussion sections, neglect, even though his sections are massive.

Thought it was going to be hard. It was hard, but not THAT hard. The Gulati fearmongering was definitely a little overblown. Commit to the class, and it will pay you back -- high input, high output. You don't need to kill yourself over the long readings. Find videos online, skim the textbook, and pay lots of attention in lectures because that's what he bases his tests around.

Gets a lot of shit for being egotistical. Probably not that untrue. If you're willing to put up with that and the 8:40, it's an absolute gem of a class. I'd be showing up to class on very low amounts of sleep and somehow wouldn't feel tired the whole time bc the lectures were so engaging. Constantly topical, references world issues a bunch, seems like the structure of the class is generally the same. Recipe for success is pretty simple: do the readings (or at least skim key terms), go to class, take notes, go to labs when the labs say they're introducing new content, do the psets, and take the practice exams when it's time to prep for the real exams. If you do all that you SHOULD do well in this class. The pop quizzes are generally concentrated pretty heavily towards the back half of the semester - SHOW UP TO EVERY CLASS ANYWAY it's the ONLY thing that matters for this class even though participation isn't graded.

It's probably worth noting I didn't have any prior econ experience going into the class. I thought he was alright and survivable, but not necessarily worth the hype (and probably not the 8am either...I was definitely not engaged (nor could I even decipher the notes I was writing in class when it was time to review for the exam)). He's kinda funny, but not that funny. I also didn't enjoy the way he would tangentially talk around topics to introduce and explain them. Some people found it engaging but I found it was an obstacle to get around. I still ended up with an A in the class (afaik he curves so 30% of people are in the A range as is standard for econ?) I would still recommend him. I took him when the other option was Noor, who I heard had long and unfinishable exams. If you don't like his lectures like me I would recommend really going off the textbook for studying (though you def have to show up to class to know which specific things you need to know). One giant caveat is that there are also 6 quizzes (some pop quizzes) of five questions, five minutes each, which make up 15% of your grade. This means that each question is like a ridiculously high percent of your grade for something that you can only think about for a minute at 8am. That also means the quiz average is pretty low, but it is hella annoying. He actually announced most of the pop quizzes at the start, but then…

The guy has been here forever. Seriously, he's probably one of the most reviewed profs on culpa (i recommend whoever is reading this to scroll to some of the old reviews - the ones at the bottom probably will be from before you were born - some of them are pretty funny too). From reading the old reviews, it seems like he's been doing the same thing for years - from the first class about the neighbor blasting music to the final class. Yet he also injects a lot of timely econ related news into class as well - we got a lot of talk about tariffs this semester. Very well rehearsed lectures, which comes off as natural and prepared. Everything that is to say about him has probably already been said. Has a big ego? Definitely. "Funny in a mean way?" 100%, will often make fun of students' answers in lecture, but don't take it personally, it's just his schtick. Overall would recommend the class though - I didn't need this class for my major, kinda took it for the experience. Is it lifechanging? eh..wouldn't go that far.. but I definitely learned stuff

created a space for lots of participation, engaging, good lecturer in class, always asked questions to make us think rather than dumping a bunch of info on us. as someone who doesn't get econ and is forced to take this class as a requirement, Gulati made it better than it could have been. although i still did badly in the class so idek. he's funny but in a mean way, which i dont mind but some might. his ego is clealy high but its not annoying.