ECON 3010

First of all, Econ 3010 is a weed-out class, it is the hardest class, by far, in the Economics major, besides possibly Econometrics. Thus, you should expect Zirkle's class, like anyone else's to be challenging. In my opinion, he was a very good professor, especially compared to the other options. He knows his stuff, and incorporates humor in his lectures, and is an all around nice and approachable guy. Go to office hours. It will pay off in many ways. Also, don't whine if it was confusing and difficult, I have several friends whom I consider brighter than me who failed/got D's in other 301 sections. Thus, I argue, you should take it with Zirkle. Don't take it if you're not planning on a major, though.

Zirkle tries. He really does. He puts on a nice face and speaks clearly and even attempts a joke or two every couple seconds. Unfortunately, he completely fails in every respect. This class was awful. I feel like I know less now than I did before going into it. Some of it is the material, which is really boring, but a sizable part of it is Zirkle's horrible lecturing ability. He simply cannot string two sentences together without confusing the whole class. His blackboard is impossible to follow. No one who sat around me could take any notes, because we didn't know what to write down. It was shocking, how bad this guy is. The tests are difficult, frustrating, and generally miserable. You only have a few questions to answer, but something always goes horribly wrong. And if you do get stuck in this class, DO NOT pay attention to the practice tests. They are nothing like the real thing. Ok I'm done railing against this class. I know it's a requirement for a lot of people but seriously, try to get someone else.

lectures are impossible to follow but the book is useful. midterms and finals are based strictly on the homeworks problems he stresses

He is very smart but cannot do simple math nor keep his lectures organized. There really is no point to going to class. Tests are tricky.

Decent guy, but truly a terrible professor. Going to class is essentially worthless because his lectures are disorganized and confusing. Take this class with someone else if you can. If you take it with Zirkle, plan on learning only from your textbook, which is doable. One of the worst professors I have come across. Midterms are normally 6-8 questions, and you can skip one. They are open-ended though and difficult.

Very difficult class. Lectures were almost impossible to follow along. Would not recommend.

Zirkle seems to have a lot of knowledge on the subject but he is very bad at conveying the concepts to his students. The lectures are mainly theoretical and all over the place. The tests are very difficult.

he is not a very good lecturer and puts a few tricky problems on the test. the material is not too difficult to understand though

I cannot recommend that you take ECON 3010 with Mr. Zirkle. This class had probably the worst instruction of any class I've taken at UVA.

Mr. Zirkle is a great teacher, but this class is really hard. I feel like I learned a lot, but I don't think it was worth it, or that my grade really reflected how hard I worked. I think Mr. Zirkle's tests were sometimes a little too hard to be fair, but he really tried to improve, and he's a really nice guy who cares how you do and wants to help. If you have to take it, I would definitely recommend Mr. Zirkle, but if you don't I wouldn't take it at all.