Professor

Felipe Goncalves

AD
4.1
Overall Ratings
Based on 26 Users
Easiness 3.0 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Workload 3.6 / 5 How light the workload is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Clarity 4.0 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 4.1 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (26)

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ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 22, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A+

Professor Goncalves is really helpful, accommodating, and cares a lot about students' learning. He really devoted a huge amount of time and efforts into teaching this class with pre-recorded lectures, two Q&A sessions each week at the scheduled lecture time, and lots of office hours. His lectures and Q&A sessions effectively introduce key concepts and examples and have clear focus on what will be tested on the exams. In a difficult quarter when it's hard to fully focus on classwork, he accommodated a lot by providing multiple grading schemes and making the exams straightforward. In future regular quarters, I would expect his exams to be harder but still manageable, as he gives tons of practice exams and goes over tons of example problems that really consolidate almost everything learned in this course. Regarding this class itself, I would say it's easier than I thought before taking it. I would say this class focuses more on applying quantitative tools and linking economic concepts with quantitative interpretations. I didn't take Econ 1 and 2 here at UCLA, but I feel this class did not add that much to the theoretical background I learned from my high school Econ 1 and 2 equivalent. Although Math 32A is not a pre-requisite for this class, I would recommend taking it before or together with Econ 11. Still, Professor Goncalves explains knowledge related to Math 32A well so there's no worries. Overall, I would highly recommend taking Econ11 with Professor Goncalves.

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ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 30, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

Professor Goncalves was the best professor I've had at UCLA! I was scared to take this class because I had heard it was difficult, but Professor Goncalves explained everything very clearly and prepared us for the tests very well. I took this class while it was online because of COVID-19, so the lectures were pre-recorded videos, while the actual lecture time was used to do practice problems and give us time to ask questions. We had weekly homework assignments, which were super helpful and reflected what we had been learning in class. He gave us multiple practice exams before each midterm and the final, which were extremely similar to the real tests. Professor Goncalves was extremely kind and helpful during office hours and during Q&A sessions. I would highly recommend this professor!

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ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Nov. 12, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

Absolutely love Prof. Goncalves! I took his class online, and he was excellent at clearly explaining all the concepts. He provides a crazy amount of practice material for the exams, so there's not really anything they can throw at you that'll surprise you. In addition, he was extremely helpful in office hours. Having a good TA helps as well, I had Barone, she's great! There's weekly homework assignments that account for 20%, 2 midterms (each 20%), and a final (40%). He was also fairly lenient in terms of changing up the grading structure to give you the best possible grade. Overall, Goncalves is a great option for Econ 11, especially because a lot of students find the subject matter challenging.

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ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Nov. 16, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A-

Goncalves is truly the BEST professor I have ever had at UCLA. His lectures are engaging and straightforward; he doesn't waste time explaining concepts you don't need to know. His problem sets can be a bit tedious in the beginning, but you get a long time to work on them and they're insanely helpful for the exams. His exams are super fair and align exactly with what he teaches; most people say Econ 11 is a pain but this was by far my favorite class I've ever taken in the major. I would 100% take any other class with Goncalves given the opportunity; he really cares about his students learning and office hours were super helpful as well.

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ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 15, 2021
Quarter: Spring 2021
Grade: A

Being honest, this class was hard at the beginning but that's the foundation for the entire class. If you can understand the early material, the later material will come easier to learn as you make connections and lines to the different theorems. The trickiest part of this class for me were the concepts like the stuff you had to memorize like properties and how to apply theorems to different parts of the problem to find the right solution. This class was math heavy, so a strong foundation in calculus would be nice, but not needed. The midterms in my opinion were fair and true to the practice tests he gave, but he did throw 1 or 2 curveballs on the frq portion and the mc. What really helped me get through this class was a man who took this class already who was willing to help and a strong group study of friends. Approaching this class, I don't recommend reading the textbook but rather rely on the slides to understand the concepts, the TA notes to understand the math behind it, and YouTube for anything else you're having trouble understanding. Goncalves is a good professor in general, but the way he explained some stuff was confusing when there was a simpler way to understand it but I had to connect the dots myself and find relationships after doing the problems like 100 times. He does goof up on his math a little, but overall not bad. Pay attention to the lectures because the small things he say will be tested.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 22, 2021
Quarter: Spring 2021
Grade: N/A

Professor Goncalves did a good job teaching Econ 11. He offered practice exams which were quite useful.

HOWEVER, this class really is NOT easy, and make sure you understand the material and the lectures.

(Personally, I didn’t find the textbook helpful, but it depends on each person.)

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ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 15, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

Since this was my first econ class at UCLA (I got credit for Econ 1 and 2 from high school) and it was a difficult class I felt that I struggled a bit more than if I had taken Econ 1 and 2 before this. I knew it was a weeder class going in and the difficulty was expected but I felt that my TAs (I attended Victoria's sessions and Akina was my original TA - I changed due to timezone issues) were both incredibly responsive and helpful. Additionally, Professor Goncalves was helpful and hosted Q&A sessions but due to timezone issues and the timings of my other classes, I could only attend one. I think that Professor Gonclaves could've potentially just had live classes and then posted the recordings of those instead of posting lectures and separately hosting Q&As during class time, but of course, this is more applicable due to COVID. I found that he was a good professor and he definitely took feedback well (midterm 2 was easier than midterm 1 and I felt the final was also a good level of difficulty - especially for an open-notes test). However, sometimes I felt that it took me a while to understand the content because he explained it in a very roundabout way. Other than that, I'd say this class was reasonable given the known difficulty of econ 11.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
May 29, 2024
Quarter: Spring 2024
Grade: A

the professor is well-versed with teaching materials and knows the content inside out, however, moves fast and there is a decent amount of self-learning. Midterms are hard but often a reflection of past midterms so a great tip would be to use test banks and actually be able to answer the questions.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A+
June 22, 2020

Professor Goncalves is really helpful, accommodating, and cares a lot about students' learning. He really devoted a huge amount of time and efforts into teaching this class with pre-recorded lectures, two Q&A sessions each week at the scheduled lecture time, and lots of office hours. His lectures and Q&A sessions effectively introduce key concepts and examples and have clear focus on what will be tested on the exams. In a difficult quarter when it's hard to fully focus on classwork, he accommodated a lot by providing multiple grading schemes and making the exams straightforward. In future regular quarters, I would expect his exams to be harder but still manageable, as he gives tons of practice exams and goes over tons of example problems that really consolidate almost everything learned in this course. Regarding this class itself, I would say it's easier than I thought before taking it. I would say this class focuses more on applying quantitative tools and linking economic concepts with quantitative interpretations. I didn't take Econ 1 and 2 here at UCLA, but I feel this class did not add that much to the theoretical background I learned from my high school Econ 1 and 2 equivalent. Although Math 32A is not a pre-requisite for this class, I would recommend taking it before or together with Econ 11. Still, Professor Goncalves explains knowledge related to Math 32A well so there's no worries. Overall, I would highly recommend taking Econ11 with Professor Goncalves.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A
June 30, 2020

Professor Goncalves was the best professor I've had at UCLA! I was scared to take this class because I had heard it was difficult, but Professor Goncalves explained everything very clearly and prepared us for the tests very well. I took this class while it was online because of COVID-19, so the lectures were pre-recorded videos, while the actual lecture time was used to do practice problems and give us time to ask questions. We had weekly homework assignments, which were super helpful and reflected what we had been learning in class. He gave us multiple practice exams before each midterm and the final, which were extremely similar to the real tests. Professor Goncalves was extremely kind and helpful during office hours and during Q&A sessions. I would highly recommend this professor!

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A
Nov. 12, 2020

Absolutely love Prof. Goncalves! I took his class online, and he was excellent at clearly explaining all the concepts. He provides a crazy amount of practice material for the exams, so there's not really anything they can throw at you that'll surprise you. In addition, he was extremely helpful in office hours. Having a good TA helps as well, I had Barone, she's great! There's weekly homework assignments that account for 20%, 2 midterms (each 20%), and a final (40%). He was also fairly lenient in terms of changing up the grading structure to give you the best possible grade. Overall, Goncalves is a great option for Econ 11, especially because a lot of students find the subject matter challenging.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A-
Nov. 16, 2020

Goncalves is truly the BEST professor I have ever had at UCLA. His lectures are engaging and straightforward; he doesn't waste time explaining concepts you don't need to know. His problem sets can be a bit tedious in the beginning, but you get a long time to work on them and they're insanely helpful for the exams. His exams are super fair and align exactly with what he teaches; most people say Econ 11 is a pain but this was by far my favorite class I've ever taken in the major. I would 100% take any other class with Goncalves given the opportunity; he really cares about his students learning and office hours were super helpful as well.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2021
Grade: A
June 15, 2021

Being honest, this class was hard at the beginning but that's the foundation for the entire class. If you can understand the early material, the later material will come easier to learn as you make connections and lines to the different theorems. The trickiest part of this class for me were the concepts like the stuff you had to memorize like properties and how to apply theorems to different parts of the problem to find the right solution. This class was math heavy, so a strong foundation in calculus would be nice, but not needed. The midterms in my opinion were fair and true to the practice tests he gave, but he did throw 1 or 2 curveballs on the frq portion and the mc. What really helped me get through this class was a man who took this class already who was willing to help and a strong group study of friends. Approaching this class, I don't recommend reading the textbook but rather rely on the slides to understand the concepts, the TA notes to understand the math behind it, and YouTube for anything else you're having trouble understanding. Goncalves is a good professor in general, but the way he explained some stuff was confusing when there was a simpler way to understand it but I had to connect the dots myself and find relationships after doing the problems like 100 times. He does goof up on his math a little, but overall not bad. Pay attention to the lectures because the small things he say will be tested.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2021
Grade: N/A
June 22, 2021

Professor Goncalves did a good job teaching Econ 11. He offered practice exams which were quite useful.

HOWEVER, this class really is NOT easy, and make sure you understand the material and the lectures.

(Personally, I didn’t find the textbook helpful, but it depends on each person.)

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
ECON 11
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A
June 15, 2020

Since this was my first econ class at UCLA (I got credit for Econ 1 and 2 from high school) and it was a difficult class I felt that I struggled a bit more than if I had taken Econ 1 and 2 before this. I knew it was a weeder class going in and the difficulty was expected but I felt that my TAs (I attended Victoria's sessions and Akina was my original TA - I changed due to timezone issues) were both incredibly responsive and helpful. Additionally, Professor Goncalves was helpful and hosted Q&A sessions but due to timezone issues and the timings of my other classes, I could only attend one. I think that Professor Gonclaves could've potentially just had live classes and then posted the recordings of those instead of posting lectures and separately hosting Q&As during class time, but of course, this is more applicable due to COVID. I found that he was a good professor and he definitely took feedback well (midterm 2 was easier than midterm 1 and I felt the final was also a good level of difficulty - especially for an open-notes test). However, sometimes I felt that it took me a while to understand the content because he explained it in a very roundabout way. Other than that, I'd say this class was reasonable given the known difficulty of econ 11.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
ECON 11
Quarter: Spring 2024
Grade: A
May 29, 2024

the professor is well-versed with teaching materials and knows the content inside out, however, moves fast and there is a decent amount of self-learning. Midterms are hard but often a reflection of past midterms so a great tip would be to use test banks and actually be able to answer the questions.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
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