Economic Statistics

Gregg is awesome. She knows the material well and is very passionate about the subject. Her in-class examples are funny and down-to-earth, which really helps students to understand the concepts. It prepares you really well if you intend to take Regression afterwards. She also hands out very clear instructions of her expectations or how to study for her class. She also cares about each student.

Gregg is awesome. She knows the material well and is very passionate about the subject. Her in-class examples are funny and down-to-earth, which really helps students to understand the concepts. It prepares you really well if you intend to take Regression afterwards. She also hands out very clear instructions of her expectations or h …Read more

I really enjoyed the class and got to learn so much. The professor is definitely one of the most wholesome people I have ever met. I got inspired a lot in his experience and expertise in the field. The class materials were really helpful and so were the professor's teaching. The workload was inevitably huge but minor stress in terms of grades as it was meant for you to explore and challenge your knowledge gained from class. I like the exam policy as it was super flexible and it for sure demonstrates your performance precisely.

I really enjoyed the class and got to learn so much. The professor is definitely one of the most wholesome people I have ever met. I got inspired a lot in his experience and expertise in the field. The class materials were really helpful and so were the professor's teaching. The workload was inevitably huge but minor stress in terms …Read more

The other reviews pretty much make this clear, but Rao is 100% THE professor to take for stats. He teaches with a kind-of-flipped classroom style (recorded videos lecture, then in-person lectures that go deeper and clarify concepts). Also, he is very available for questions in office hours and on Slack. His grading policy made this class much lower stress than it could have been: all assignments could only increase our grade, not detract from it, and most were graded just for effort/completion. There were a lot of assignments, as expected, but I think this was the best stats experience that I could have had. His millennial references and personal anecdotes made this class fun too. Overall, the content was manageable and Rao was very accommodating and passionate about the material. (Lastly, pro tip: go to class! He gives out a lot of extra credit points just for showing up)

The other reviews pretty much make this clear, but Rao is 100% THE professor to take for stats. He teaches with a kind-of-flipped classroom style (recorded videos lecture, then in-person lectures that go deeper and clarify concepts). Also, he is very available for questions in office hours and on Slack. His grading policy made this …Read more

Do not take sommers! He is a nice guy, but he assigns way too much homework. On top of that, his STATA lab assignments are super long and don't have much real-world application. Stats is important to a bunch of different majors, but take this with a different prof if possible!

Rao is a great guy and is really enthusiastic about what he's teaching. There are a lot of assignments each week that can add up if you get behind, but the grading is really easy and he's super accommodating for late days and you can really turn things in whenever. Getting an A is a lot of work but not very difficult. I'd definitely recommend Rao! He's a chiller for sure.

This class is horrible. There's so much homework and all of it is graded, and Sommers does not teach very clearly so it's difficult to do well on the homework without extensive help from the TA. Sommers also seems to not want his class to succeed – today he realized that everyone got a certain question on the homework wrong, so instead of going over it again, he just told us it would be on the final exam. This course is very frustrating and although the material is probably useful, you won't understand it unless you take it with another professor.

This class is horrible. There's so much homework and all of it is graded, and Sommers does not teach very clearly so it's difficult to do well on the homework without extensive help from the TA. Sommers also seems to not want his class to succeed – today he realized that everyone got a certain question on the homework wrong, so inste …Read more

For anyone wanting to take Econ stats in the future… do not take with Sommers! He is planning on making exams (which were take home this semester) in person next semester. There are also 4 homework’s per week which graded closely for accuracy. The amount of homework and the way it’s graded does nothing to help you learn the content but instead just incentivizes getting answers from other sources in order to keep a decent grade in the class.

For anyone wanting to take Econ stats in the future… do not take with Sommers! He is planning on making exams (which were take home this semester) in person next semester. There are also 4 homework’s per week which graded closely for accuracy. The amount of homework and the way it’s graded does nothing to help you learn the content b …Read more

Paul Sommers is a cool guy, and I am able to follow along on his lectures fairly well, but he assigns way too much homework. The STATA labs are even worse as they take so long to do. Midway through the semester, Sommers cranked up the difficulty on the homework and the second midterm since people were doing too well. I would highly recommend taking this class with a different professor.

Paul Sommers is a cool guy, and I am able to follow along on his lectures fairly well, but he assigns way too much homework. The STATA labs are even worse as they take so long to do. Midway through the semester, Sommers cranked up the difficulty on the homework and the second midterm since people were doing too well. I would highly r …Read more

Professor Summers makes use of Stata, which is a frustrating software and less useful than knowing R. He also is unable to post assignments online, requiring students to write down the assignment that he writes on the board each class. There are four homework assignments a week, and although they are generally easy, doing them all is very time consuming.

Akhil Rao is a very sweet man who really cares about what he's teaching, as well as how it is received by students. While I greatly enjoyed the lectures and labs, this class represented the largest workload I have ever had at Middlebury.

I thought that the class was fairly easy. Professor Gregg posts her notes online and as long as you do the homework and look at her notes, the exams are fairly easy. Out of my econ classes, this class was the most enjoyable.

Prof Rao is a great teacher. I enjoyed his statistics class and he made me fall in love with statistics. I think it is fair to say he is fair in his evaluations and you just need to work for the grades you want.

Sommers is a great guy but a not-so-great professor. The constant homework assignments made it difficult to actually feel like I was applying what we were learning in class to the homework assignments. Tests were open-note, but instead of reviewing questions the entire class got wrong, he would say that these questions would be on the final exam.

This course was interesting but required a lot of time to complete the lab assignments given every week and problem sets assigned each day. The exams were take-home exams but were challenging and required at least 5 hours. The professor sends out lecture notes before class so it is easy to follow along.