Principles of Economics

Note: I have previously studied some micro- and macroeconomics, many of these concepts and ideas are not new to me. Additionally, I did not work through all of the material in the course, more like 30% of it.

The course is a fairly wide introduction to economics, covering topics from both micro- and macroeconomics. Each week introduces multiple topics. The topics contain video lectures, summaries, discussions and exercises.

The video lectures are great; the slides are well made and the professor presents the content clearly. The professor makes frequent use of examples from industry and economic history to illustrate, which I find helpful and interesting.

The exercises, which mostly consist of multiple-choice questions, are a big letdown. There are too few of them and they are too easy. Plenty of them were even binary multiple-choice questions with 2 or more submissions attempts. The few exercises that required calculation and input were generally good. In fact the exercises are so weak it is trivial to pass the course, even with a “distinction” (75% or higher).

Each topic presents an opportunity for students to discuss a relevant question or article. A good idea, but the instructors did not create an official forum thread dedicated to each discussion. This resulted in most students creating their own separate forum thread for their own response which garnered little or no interaction from others. In other words, little discussion took place.

To summarize: great video lectures and material, but exercises lack in both quantity and quality.