Vogel is by no means a bad professor. He is pretty clear, organized, and sometimes funny. Note that there will be no homework or practice, but he gives out all past exams and examples in his lecture are useful. If you are reading the reviews from 2018, they are not really a good indicator of his lecture today. Vogel's exam format has improved A LOT in recent years. In 2018 he made one question worth 65 points but exams in recent years definitely become more reasonable. I can confidently say he is one of the better professors in the econ department.

Vogel's a stud. His tests suck, but that's UCLA's biz econ weeder courses for you. He was a great lecturer; you can tell he's wicked smart, plus he's funny. This has been my favorite econ course so far because the concepts are more applicable to real life, and his teaching style is engaging.
I had to go away for a week mid quarter, and he was supper accommodating in terms of zooming his lectures, as well as recording and posting them for me to go back and review.
If you want an good grade, do his practice tests... over and over. He posts all past midterms and finals, so there's pretty much endless materials to review, and they look almost exactly like his real tests (not including the curve balls he likes to throw). Overall would definitely take this class again, and don't think you'll find many better econ professors at UCLA.

Professor Vogel is a gem of the econ department. His lectures stand out among the department like a shining star amidst the drab, light-polluted sky that is notorious for curving down. He is both passionate and clear—both in terms of how he lectures content, and how he communicates expectations and procedures of the class. Meaning, he is always prepared with real life examples to contextualize course concepts in a tangible way. He loves a tangent which is great for lecture both because they can be fun to listen to and also because it gives you a break from having to listen intently to the whole lecture and you can tune out for a few minutes. He also is occasionally known for interactive demonstrations which seem to be only vaguely related to course concepts but he really seems to have fun with them nonetheless, so who am I to question it. Vogel seems to have a strong understanding of his audience, and can generally tell when to slow things down for confusing concepts, and just generally knows what college students want—like to know specifically what is going to be on each exam. Speaking of his exams, they are incredibly fair. He posts numerous past exams to study from, including rubrics which show that he's generous with partial credit. There are no problem sets for this class, so the workload is essentially 0 every week, fantastic. But the week leading up to midterm 1, 2, and the final—maybe clear your schedule and move to Powell.

A minor note about the way Vogel structures class is that discussion section is weird. Pretty highly dependent on your TA in terms of what they cover and how they do it, and discussion can often feel like taking a completely different class than what we're doing in lecture. Ultimately, I didn't feel like this was a super consequential factor in the grand scheme of the class, but was a little disorienting in the first few weeks.

Simply put, Vogel is an inviting professor that is passionate about the subject and his students' success. He genuinely seems excited to be at each lecture, and has a lighthearted and engaging lecture style without being patronizing. This mundane major class turned out to be one of my favorite classes I've taken at UCLA to date.

Vogel is a very funny guy, and his lectures are fun. However, I didn't really enjoy his class. He doesn't give any homework at all, which sounds nice but is actually frustrating because it means you have to study way more for each midterm/final. Also, he decides to give the second midterm on the very last day of class, which ostensibly helps you study for the final, but really just convolutes things. Maybe this is more of a problem with the material of the class, but the problems just suck to actually complete. They aren't that difficult, but often involve really dense mathematical computation where lots can go wrong on a purely computational front. And he is quite stingy with partial credit, making this even worse. On the first midterm, there was a 9 pt question where I did all of the work exactly correctly, and then accidentally wrote down the answer the wrong way at the very end, and lost all the points. I'm fairly sure this mistake alone was the difference between an A- and A for me, but so it goes.

Vogel is the worst professor I've had at UCLA. As the quarter went on, I really realized how much he simply doesn't care about his students. I never knew what people meant by that until now. He doesn't provide any homeworks or problem sets--he just posts his pasts exams and says to do them. His lectures are not helpful for the tests at all. We do not go over any practice problems in class that even remotely mirror what we are tested on, and the way he teaches does not resonate in any logical way. Concepts were vastly overinflated and made much more difficult than they needed to be. Discussion sections are the most helpful, but this completely depends on your TA. Also, only about 30% of the topics we covered in lecture were discussed in section. There were several topics that he just wrote 10 slides about and never provided practice for, but they'd appear on the tests. He is entirely uncommunicative. On the first midterm, he included a 15 point question that was purposefully included as a curve ball, as he never once mentioned the topic in class. Apparently he discussed it in office hours to select students.

The big kicker was his change the DAY before the final from free response to MCQ with no explanation or warning whatsoever. Almost every one of his past tests were free response, as well as both midterms. Free response for a class like this is absolutely vital. There are so many mathematical steps involved for each concept and the true measurement of learning is if you can set up the problem right, which they had provided very helpful partial credit for in midterm 1 and 2. So, for the final, I ended up getting a grade that did not reflect my knowledge whatsoever due to algebraic errors and unfriendly numbers (he also doesn't let you have a calculator but you'll end up with an answer like (346^1/2)/244, which is just a huge waste of time). To me, this reflects laziness and a general "go fuck yourself" to students who had been working very hard to understand things conceptually.

I have done very well in my past classes at UCLA and like to think I'm a relatively smart person. I don't like to blame my failures on other people, but fuck Vogel.

Vogel made some lectures pretty entertaining, 8.5/10 experience

Vogel was a good lecturer that was entertaining at times. 8.5/10 experience.

Enjoyment of the course material and the grade you receive in this class are not really related. Vogel himself is a generally clear lecturer but if you find yourself confused about little details such as the math then he will brush over these things very fast. Often in lecture he explains the concepts with words only and excludes the exact mathematical steps to get there, so be prepared to do lots of self teaching. Shoutout to my TA Jack Sitarski if you take this course I definitely recommend him. He explains the concepts and connects them to the math very well and made me more interested in the material. As for Vogel's grading methods, he curves very generously but still grades based on three exams. Making the midterm so close to the final drastically reduced my motivation to study for the final which was for sure the main reason why I did the worst on it. Vogel's humor is dry and I think certain people find it condescending but for me it made lectures more engaging. To do well on the exams just work through every single problem from past exams, discussion sections, homework sets, and the lecture slides.

Idk why ppl say he's bad. He's literally one of the best professors. If you want to actually understand what is happening in class instead of just memorizing slides, he is the professor to take.
Yes, his tests are tough but honestly, the challenge is fun because he gives you the impression that he knows his shit and when you are done with this class, so will you.
Take him to experience how fun and interesting Econ can be.

If I'm being honest, I hated ECON 101 with Professor Vogel. It's not so much that his class was difficult as it was his attitude. Vogel came from teaching at Columbia, which he mentioned a few times, comparing our program with theirs in a condescending manner. Sure, their program is likely much better, but there's no need to be rude about it. He did not like to help students, in fact I remember following one exam, he told the entire class not to email him at all with any questions. I distinctly remember the TAs not liking him either, criticizing his teaching methods. Oh, and perhaps to explain this attitude, he did brag to the class once that he had tenure and would never have to worry about unemployment.

Now onto content: the class was not impossibly difficult, but it was difficult. While the midterms were quite different from the practice exams he gave, the final was much more similar to what he provided as study materials. After the exams, I did end up finding some questions identical to those of the midterm questions in the slides, but ironically, I had notes on my own slides next to those specific questions: "He did not go through this example. Try it at home on your own." So that was annoying. Also, there was one question on the first midterm that involved using inequalities. In class, he said that the inequalities wouldn't matter in terms of whether or not you used less than or less than/equal to. He ended up marking down significantly on the exam.

To sum it up, I wouldn't take another class with Vogel. His attitude stinks and he's a bit rude.