Xavier Sala-i-martin

This class was mid. The exams were more conceptually heavy, so if you are not the strongest math student, I would take Macro with Xavier. Xavier rarely interacted with students outside of lecture. We spent the first half of the semester learning economic growth and the Solow model because that is Xavier’s area of expertise. However, this forced him to cram seven chapters of Macro into the second half of the semester, which was overwhelming for many students. Xavier often omitted key concepts from his actual in-person lectures, but luckily he covered them in his comprehensive chapter notes. Read the chapter notes and practice the problem sets and past exam questions. The chapter notes are quite long, but you must read them thoroughly if you intend to succeed in this class. His exams consist of many short essay questions, and the TAs can be quite strict with grading, so be sure to explain things very clearly and thoroughly. Also, make sure you understand all the different graphs, as he likes to ask students to construct graphs, transform them, and analyze them. I believe he curves the median grade to around a B/B+. I studied fairly consistently throughout the semester, relying only on his lecture notes, past exams, and PSETs, and ended up with an A. I recommend not packing your semester with too many challenging classes if you intend to take Macro.

he's funny and spunky and the class material isn't actually that hard, though it is tedious. However he's really not good at lecturing, which is a shame and makes it difficult to learn at all in lecture.

I feel the need to add a review here that explains that you can essentially learn the entire course off of the provided notes from the TA and score extremely well. Everything covered on his exams are directly in these comprehensive notes, which are actually the most well-done part of the class and extremely helpful. The lectures themselves are fine, go for his passion, but at the end of the day just know that you will have to learn a lot of the exam-tested content yourself, without the prof or the TAs. The comprehensive notes will be your best friend.

Okay people are going to love him or hate him; easily. If you enjoy personality and theory, you'll like him; he's very obviously knowledgable and teaches in a very funny and unique way. He, as a person, is hilarious; his personality carried lectures for me. This was the only class I went to every lecture in. That being said he is very disorganized, and the class topics are split super weirdly in that most of the semester is covering one specific topic (which he admits, is the only topic he thinks is important) and thus cramming the rest at the end of the semester. I did not need the TAs, like most people said they did, I went to all lectures took notes and got a really high A, but not all TAs are good. The one I regularly went to was amazing, but I heard others are quite bad; but you have 10 TAs to pick from, so keep looking till you find one you like. Overall I'd say register for the class, go to the first three lectures to see if you fuck with him; if you don't, drop the class and go next semester, but if you do I think he's worth taking. I personally adore this guy, I think he's hilarious and I love his outfits, but it's very very personality dependent. He's an acquired taste.

I don't really know what I expected, but he wasn't my favourite. The first half of the course is focused on essentially one topic, but not before the first few classes of going through info you think is basic and introductory but somehow ends up on the midterm and final anyways. Spending half the semester focusing on the Solow-Swan model doesn't at all prepare you for the second half of the semester, where there are easily multiple times the number of equations and concepts you need to know. He also seems pretty disinterested in the class besides the literal teaching he does. Barely answers questions and seems to know nothing about PSETS, and the midterm and final. Find a good TA and attend their recitations (or at least go through their slides) bc Xavier def isn't covering all the material you need for the exams. Doable class though, but be prepared for a content-heavy back half. assignments, grading, houses

Very knowledgeable and engaging just like everyone else says but he and his TA are quite literally the most uncommunicative people I’ve encountered at Columbia who point blank refused my accommodations. I will say I learned a lot and thought the exams were extremely fair but if you anticipate needing accommodations take another professor

Xavier is very overrated. He is not connected to the class in any meaningful way. He does not write the problem sets, midterm, or final, and he has no idea what we are actually tested on. Any question you have can only be answered by the TAs who basically run the entire course. You effectively have no professor to speak with, the head TA decides your grade, and that’s it. Xavier acts like a freelancer who isn’t really part of the class and just shows up twice a week and leaves. Just wait a semester and take someone else.

The professor is a very funny guy but he absolutely does not teach. The class is taught by the TAs. The lecture content feels very empty and not nuanced nor grounded in much economic theory, until he drops a whole load of formulas on you to make sense of alone.

Coming into Columbia, I was torn between majoring in biochemistry or economics. In high school, my focus had been primarily on the former, through coursework, research, and extracurriculars like science olympiad, but I had a strong interest in economics and political science, which I pursued through personal reading and independent study. So, I was genuinely excited when I signed up for this course. Unfortunately, as a naive freshman, I didn’t think to check Culpa for reviews of Professor Xavier, and worse yet, I brushed off the warnings from other students. As a result, I ended up stuck in what was, hands down, the worst academic experience I’ve had at Columbia (yes, even worse than UW or FroSci). Ironically, this class was so poorly taught that it pushed me away from economics entirely and solidified my decision to stick with biochemistry. Yes, other reviews mention that Xavier is “funny.” I suppose that’s true...if your idea of humor is the kind of cheap, juvenile drivel churned out by modern Marvel. Think Thor Love and Thunder: laser-eyed babies, hollow quips, and the kind of writing that feels like it was A/B tested on the producers' inebriated toddlers. Now imagine that energy transmuted into dead-eyed cookie jokes, told weekly, without irony or mercy. That’s the level we’re working with. It stops being funny and starts to feel condescending, like you're being asked to s…

Professor Xavier Sala-i-Martin is a funny guy but really all he does is lecture twice a week and does not ingage with students beyond that. It is a large class and he does not even reply to email and just refers them to his TA's. In reality, it is the TA's teaching this class. It is a hard class and he has high expectations while not doing much to prepare students for that.