Jon Isham

This was my course with the heaviest workload this semester (though I wasn’t doing any labs). We had readings from the textbook between each class, which took hours to go through if you were diligent. The textbook was extremely well written and interesting (and free online!), applying economics to real-world concepts and problems. It explained complicated concepts very well using step-by-step language and models. The major work component for this course was the 18-page research paper. Isham had us all come up with a question that could be answered with economics. This was a ton of work, but I honestly learned so much from it about research. We had problem sets due every few weeks on components of the paper. The requirements were sometimes vague, but it was helpful in setting deadlines so that I didn’t procrastinate until the end. It was cool to apply economics to a problem that I was interested in. Professor Isham was extremely engaging during lectures and made economics super interesting. He showed us how economics can be used to solve real-world problems such as climate change, poverty, and inequality. He made sure we understood both the positive and negative aspects of what economics has done for our world. Lectures were more theoretical and less based on material for the textbook. I taught myself a lot of the exam material from the textbook. Exams were difficult but if you paid attention in class and did the readings you could do well. Isham was also very open to meet with students during office hours about exam material and questions about the research paper and was good at answering questions. We had three exams for this course, five problem sets about the research paper, and the research paper acted as our final exam. Overall, I highly recommend taking this course with Professor Isham. He really opened up my eyes to the diverse applications of economics.

This was my course with the heaviest workload this semester (though I wasn’t doing any labs). We had readings from the textbook between each class, which took hours to go through if you were diligent. The textbook was extremely well written and interesting (and free online!), applying economics to real-world concepts and problems. It …Read more

Much of the material needed for exams were covered in the day to day homework reading assignments. Topics covered in class were more supplemental to the hw reading, which was still necessary for the exams but I did most of the learning from the textbook

I loved this class because Jon Isham is so thoughtful and reflective with the materials! Sometimes he can go on tangents and we struggle to get through everything, but he is always self-aware of this and adjusts accordingly.