Before taking this course, I was told 100 times over that it was extremely difficult -- now that I'm done with it I strongly disagree. Doyle lectures very similarly to his Principles classes, but gets a little more into the content because this is clearly what he is very knowledgable and passionate about. The class is super interesting if you liked macroeocnomics, he spends the first half of the course on valuation etc. and then moves into detailed monetary policy at the end. Week by week there isn't much work for the class, and if you don't understand something in lecture he has office hours twice a week where he is more than happy to help any student with content questions and give some more examples for topics that were covered in lectures. Personally, I don't think you need to read the textbook, he bases everything off of what he covers in lecture. There are lecture recordings and recording of how to go through practice problems for each exam on Canvas. There are 6 problem sets over the course of the semester, none of them very hard, and then other than that your grade is made up of TA points, 2 quizzes, 2 midterms, and the final. I thought that it was very easy to get over 90% on the midterms and got close to it on the final. Not sure what the midterm averages were, but he ended up making a 94 the cutoff for an A in the course, with the rest of the grading distribution almost identical to the College standard. I was able to get an A with a 93% average on the midterms and an 85% on the final. Absolutely reccomend this class.
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235 Reviews
Money and Banking is a very good econ elective. It is easy to do well in, relatively interesting, and Prof Doyle is very nice. The content is interesting if you enjoy learning about bonds, stocks, the banking system in the US, and monetary policy. While it does not go into extreme detail on everything, it provides a very good overview of these concepts. There are a lot of formulas and real world application to present day economic events, such as post-COVID monetary policy. Prof Doyle is a very nice guy and is eager to help his students. He gets on tangents sometimes in class that can sometime fall flat, but he is really a good guy who is passionate about his work. He allowed us to have a notecard for formulas on the exams which was super helpful. I had no problem doing very well with minimal work outside of class.
#tCFF23
This course is designed overall good. Professor Doyle puts recording of each lecture online for lazy people who do not want to go to class in person. His in-person lectures, with all my respect, are boring and not very helpful. He sometimes mentioned something that is about the real world and it will possibly appear in the exam. However, most of the content in the exam will be based on the slides. There are many questions about definitions and using formulas to calculate rates, and thus if you can go over the slides well you can get 90+ every time.
However, the problem of this course is about its grading. Professor Doyle makes the so-called "Dutch Knockout" an option for grading. That is you can either use all the components to have a grade or simply make the final exam grade as your final grade. This Dutch Knockout is a bullshit because Professor Doyle will make the final harder than all other exams, just like he did in ECON2020. At the end of the semester, the grade for an A was set to 95.5 so if you want to get an A, you cannot make too many mistakes in the former exams and quizzes. Last but not least, you need to find a good TA for yourself if you want to do good in this course.
Very easy, very informative class. Lectures are a bit dull at times, but Professor Doyle is funny. Exams are extremely fair, everything comes from either lectures or articles we read (or, as other reviews have noted, recorded lectures from COVID). 3x5 index card means that memorizing formulas isn't really needed. The material this class covers is extremely relevant to the financial world, and I've learned more about the real world in this class than most others I've taken. It's not like I was on the edge of my seat every class, but when you really pay attention the material is fascinating. Doyle is also incredibly helpful in office hours; I only went once for help with extra credit and he explained everything I needed to know in a way that made a lot of sense. There's also Dutch knockout, so if you mess up during the semester you can replace everything with just your grade on the final, which is itself not terribly difficult.
OLD (~2016) REVIEWS AREN'T CONSISTENT WITH WHAT THE CLASS IS NOW. This is just my opinion. There aren't 30+ page packets of practice questions (discussion attendance isn't even required) and as far as I can tell the material is taught correctly.
Doyle himself is clearly knowledgeable about the content and wants to help his students. His slides were enough notes for me to do well, but he would ramble on and not finish his lectures, relying on COVID era recorded videos to finish units. As for the class itself, about 70% of the grade is exams which were not super difficult and often contained questions very similar to those given in the problem sets. You were also allowed a 3x5 index card for formulas and notes. Some of the exam questions were a little vague though and could be graded harshly. Participation, extra credit, and the completion-based problem sets serve as grade buffers.
Would definitely recommend for a fairly easy and low workload elective. A lot of the content is basic information about stocks, bonds, and monetary policy that is super relevant regardless of what career/major you are and hopefully will help your investing goals/plans for the future. #tCFF23
Money and Banking is not the most interesting, nor the most difficult, Economics elective I have taken. The material covered – which includes bonds, stocks, derivatives, financial intermediation, bank management, and monetary policy – is not too challenging. The exam questions are also relatively straightforward and often closely reflect the questions asked on previous quizzes and homework assignments. I remain very surprised by the vast number of reviewers who suggest that this class is impossibly difficult; while a bit disorganized, it is easily possible to earn a B or above in this course.
Carter Doyle himself introduces an interesting perspective to the course, having worked in the financial markets and banking industry around the time of the 2008 recession; he provides fun anecdotes and is overall a very friendly and nice professor. However, I think that this course could have covered more content and that we could have explored some of these concepts in a more in-depth manner. Doyle's lectures would often consist of him reading the lecture slides to the class and then dismissing us early. I would, though, recommend this course to anyone interested in a not-too-stressful Economics elective that covers essential material only briefly skimmed over in the intro and intermediate macro courses.
Class is straight forward, memorizing lecture notes will probably get you a B. To get an A on exams you'll need to read the assigned text book chapters thoroughly and do extra practice problems.
Doyle is a smart and great guy that was a macro decision maker at a large hedge fund. Materials not too difficult, gives you everything you need to know upfront.
Doyle did absolutely nothing. The material itself is very interesting and useful but Doyle is absolutely awful. His test were extremely difficult and the T.A.'s were also not helpful at all and graded super harshly
The class was harder than expected, and I probably should have read much more than I did. The Problem Sets are graded on completion which is really helpful, and they aren't that frequent. Professor Doyle knows a lot about financial markets and the material, but sometimes his lectures can be really boring and feel to drag on even though they're only 50 minutes. He moves through the slides kinda fast but he posts all of them and they make more sense if you read beforehand. The Quizzes are pretty difficult, but he does post review videos which I highly recommend watching, as about 80% of the material comes directly from those. Overall not terrible but you definitely need to put in the work to get a good grade. There is basically no curve at all, and the cutoff for an A is a 95 which I would think is borderline impossible, but apparently people do it each semester.
This class is not as easy as you think it will be. The lectures Doyle provides are NOT helpful for his exams. The class average on exam 1 was lower C, upper D range. Doyle teaches the absolute basics of the class and then expects the student to read a thousand pages of a textbook then put it all together. It is only twice a week, and isn't very helpful. The class is almost never on pace to the schedule and Doyle has many anecdotes that distract the class. If you don't have to take this class, don't. Overall it was a waste of time and mostly consisted of cramming for the final which was worth around 40% of your total grade or 100% if you happen to Dutch Knockout (score higher on the exam than the whole semester combined). He essentially hands out 100 free points through 40 being participating in Kahoot! questions and 60 being homeworks that get graded on participation. These are essential or else I'd guarantee you the class average would be in the C range. Overall Doyle is not the best professor to take this with unless you really enjoy self-teaching. Not super exciting and fun especially since it is usually an early course.