2.6
Quality3.9
Difficulty44%
Would Retake109
Reviews44%
Would Retake
109
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
23
4
16
3
16
2
7
1
47
What Students Say
“Man's great, funny and understandable”
ECO102 - 5.0 rating“Lack of practice materials”
ECO102 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
35%
Textbook Required
0%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.32 avg changeRatings by Course
ECO101102
5.0
(2)ECO101
3.3
(7)ECO102
2.7
(84)ECO358
1.7
(15)ECO351
1.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
ECO101102
4.0
ECO102
3.9
ECO358
3.9
ECO101
3.7
ECO351
3.0
Reviews (109)
THE HARDEST GRADER I'VE EVER SEEN
Very nice prof! He actually wants his students to do well and outlines precisely what you need to know.
Honestly he's pretty chill but when it comes to marking the scheme is hard for no reason. Stuff on his slides and HW and past midterms do pop up on the midterm, so headsup!
ONLINE DUE TO COVID-19. Fails to follow his own deadlines (new date for midterm grades everyday)... other than that, good prof, exams are clear and easy
He's really good, gives you slides and allocates time in each class to review and recap concepts. His tests are really good, and he's just a really nice guy overall.
Very great Professor and would definitely want to have him again. His tests are very fair and with accordance to material that he teaches. Wouldnt say they are easy, but just paying attention and putting in a decent amount of work into the course will definitely pay off. He is very clear and really wants to see you succeed in his course. The Best!
He just reads off slides and often repeats himself making it hard to keep track of what he's trying to explain. Explanations of course content aren't very in depth and his TAs often do a better job at teaching than he does.
He makes the class interesting and is a fair tester. However, when classes went online b/c covid, he did not keep his schedule and ignored student concerns for awhile, stressing everyone out.
Professor Vellekoop is one of the sweethearts in the economics department. He really cares for the students and is always available outside class. In terms of teaching, he is quite repetitive but it gets students to be familiar with concepts. He also gives easy tutorial quizzes and midterms.
Very calming voice. Very bad Midterms.
Ok as a prof. Lectures can be kind of vague and slides are sometimes confusing. Definitely a nice and caring guy in general though.
The work for this course is tough, but the prof does really well in trying to explain concepts. He's also very caring and will host personal office hours whenever you need it.
Professor Vellekoop was the best teacher I've had at UofT. As long as you put in the work and effort to keep up with readings and attend lectures on a regular basis, you will most likely succeed in his course. Out of all teachers, he really puts in the extra effort to make sure students clearly understand his expectations and the content.
Although sometimes chaotic at handling the course, overall vellekoop is a fair guy and if the test is unfair he will probably curve. As a student who had him both for micro and macro I can say he's the fairest prof I've met in the econ department
good prof. very clear and monotone but you will understand the idea. pretty easy grader, will tell you example questions on the exam. overall, good experience.
talks slow in recorded lectures. the assignments really help boost your mark. exams are WAY too long to be fair.
although the exams he gave were pretty long and somewhat challenging, I believe that Prof Vellekoop was thoughtful and caring person during this class. his lectures were very clear and informative, and prepared you well for the exams.
He is a great person but the lectures are just fine. Quizzes, assignments, and exams are not difficult. But I believe due to COVID-19 the online final exams have been curved down, which is disappointing.
Sometimes confused during lecture(maybe due to the accent),but really nice prof!
He is literally the worst professor I've ever met. He sent lecture slides at the end of the week and sometimes even sent them till the next week, yet his quiz is as often as possible no matter he gives students enough time or not. We are now into week10 but we still did not receive the lecture slides for week 8. Yeah so good luck with final.
He is literally the worst professor I've ever met. He sent lecture slides at the end of the week or even NOT sent. and he sent the last four weeks materials (the hardest part of the course) at the last week. It seems that we don't have any other courses to study or with finals. Terrible Test schedule. Moblab performance point makes no sense.
Worst prof the quality of lecture is very low feels like reading the text book the test is very hard during online world, never post lecture video on time and always let his mistake or his delay pressured on his students. Hard to imagine how he continue to teach this course like nightmare the least professonal lecturer
not good prof. posts lecture notes late
Worst professor ever! Never post lectures and videos on time and let his mistakes pressured on us.
I typically don't post things like this, but he is literally the WORST prof I've ever had. Always postponing class videos and test gradings, too many unnecessary yet heavy tests/finals (he also doesn't have many past tests to practice for). Not a fair grader and never listens from students.
worst prof ever met
WORST PROF EVER!!! He always posted the lecture slides and recording late, like two weeks delay! It seems like he did not really care about his students. The tests and final exams were extremely heavy workload, and he did this room check every time, just time-consuming and pointless. He made everyone get a worse mark in the Final Exam.
Terrible prof. The arrangement for tests is very unreasonable. He always posted materials late and posted grades late as well. He did not care about his students' study experience. The grading is tough. Do not expect any curves.
The slides are mostly disconnected points tossed together without the necessary reasoning and deduction that takes you from the context to the result. Students struggle to have a true grasp onto macro economics concepts and principles.
I hate the course, but I find prof Vellekoop to be a good prof. I actually feel like I'm learning stuff compared to eco101. This course demands you a lot of work, and it's insane that assignments that I spend 5hrs on average only worth for 0.6% of the whole grade. Again, I hate the course and the department, but he tries to teach at least.
Not a bad guy, subpar prof. Ignores many major student concerns. Test questions are frequently ambiguous. When students mentioned a "hint" he provided on a test question was unclear, his response was "not all hints are helpful (unfortunately)." Unbelievably stressful grading policy. Ended up scraping A+. Still a terrible ambiguous, crushing class.
100% the most boring professor you will ever find. Dropped this guys course ASAP, not a bird and not enjoyable. Since he teaches electives I'd highly recommend finding another course, don't make the same mistake as me.
Okay dude! At least he is sort of organised and doesn't push material into the next week's lecture. Major drawback is that he structures the course to draw both heavily from the book and the lectures so get ready for a lot of reading. Weird assignments that constitute less than a % of marks but take up 5 hours to finish. VVVVVV DRY lecturer.
Eco102 definately isnt a very easy course but in my experience prof vellekoops lectures were pretty easy to follow and he was always willing to help during office hours(definately would recommend going). His midterms and finals were ok as long as you really studied for them. The grading was pretty harsh but there was a curve at the end
Vellekoop is a great prof. He will modify test difficulty and curve based on the class average and shoots for a 70-75 percent mean, which is more than reasonable for a third-year economics course. I enjoyed the class, and would highly recommend it. No issue with lecture slides or grades being unreasonably posted late. Study and you'll do well.
Lectures were interesting with real world data. Midterm and final were fair. Mistakes were fairly common on quizzes which was annoying. I wish participation grade wasnt random but not a bad class
Does curve the marks a lot so thats nice. Very boring lectures that don't make sense but you have to attend class because of graded participation in games. Reading the text is a must. Fair tests and exam.
I took the course in Winter 2020. Vellekoop was a nice professor, always available to students who needed help. He has an accent but it is still understandable.
He is hard to follow in lectures and I zone out so much in his class. brutal grading policy if you mess up something.
good guy lectures are ok and tests are hard but fair I'd say
eco102 caused me so much pain. but vellekoop was nice. he has a very nice lecture voice and it is quite easy to fall asleep in his lectures. lectures felt like ted talks. he is pretty tech-savvy and answers all our questions on piazza, including what a haircut was. overall, eco102 is hard but vellekoop is cool.
Nice dude, tries to run interactive and funny lectures, just given dull content. My year, he co-taught with Professor Brandt, and far outclassed his partner - however, the assignments were marked very ambiguously and the quizzes rarely related to Vellekoop's lectures as much as Brandt's. The midterms and final were fair and fairly simple.
Prof. Vellekoop is an amazing prof. Really nice, smart guy. We need more of teachers like him in the econ department. Genuinely, a great prof, don't listen to the haters. Explains concepts in a simple, practical way. Classic economics with a modern perspective.
I hope he can practice his presentation skill at home because he cannot finish the slides EVERY TIME!!!!! ALSO BAD HANDWRITING makes me confused. After this class, my guessing skill has big improved :)
Great prof, has a bit of an accent so it's a bit hard to understand what he is saying at times. Additionally, he has rough handwriting, but other than he's a fantastic prof. Very helpful, keeps his examples and lectures simple and straight to the point. Very good prof to teach ECO102 considering how confusing econ can be at times.
Prof. Vellekoop is active on Piazza and responds to emails, which is very accessible. As long as all the readings assigned are completed, this course should not be as challenging as people say.
Prof Vellekoop is a good person who genuinely cares about the course but there's a lot of room for improvement in terms of teaching. Don't expect the course to be a cakewalk
My role model.
The lectures always failed to cover all the points, and often the slides were not read through. The workload of the exam was huge and heavy, with ambiguous questions, and just a few more minutes to think through the following questions. This should be called the uoft version of Fast and Furious, not an exam.
This course is the worst one in my first year study. Professor Nathanael never practice before delivering his leecture, this is why he always cannot finish lecture on time and leave students a bunch of things to study on themselves. The assignments are curved down, no mark scheme provided. If you need to take this course, good luck.
strict TAs as well
term test 2 average is about 46, didn't curve. Mark confused
worst prof in uoft.
The grade is too low
tough tests, no curves...
extremely tough marker
Some problems and concepts on tests are never taught or mentioned; be careful when selecting professors
Midterm average and median is 46, no curves, more than 50% of students fail his tests.
Past tests have low reference value, he will always deliberately come up with more difficult and never-mentioned type of questions. Also tests are pretty long
Connects all concepts of macroeconomics and makes sure we have the intuition to apply the calculations we learn outside of class. Office hours twice a week where you can literally ask him like 10 questions and he'll give great answers and clear things up a ton. Allows regrades on final and all questions are entirely taught through course material!
worst professor, bad teaching quality and no curves ever, class average on midterm is below 50
extreme long tests and tricky questions
class avg 46 on term test
Get prepared retaking the course! Minimum mark to get in economics related majors is 63+ but class median on his test is 46 which means over 50% of students failed.
Intentionally misleading students. On his review session he said practicing past tests is helpful. But reality is that problems on his new tests are always different and difficult comparing with past tests.
Test requires heavy memorization
worst UofT professor, bad marking scheme and tricky tests. Test average below 50
tests are very hard
Midterms were understandable with having the average of low 60s or high 50s. But he made the final much harder than that.
For those of you looking at the 1 ratings, just know that the average for midterm 1 was 66 and midterm 2 was 61. Your marks will be curved, but just at the end. The negative reviews are just salty Rotman kids that doesn't know to colour inside the line. Man's great, funny and understandable. Just wait von moment and study ahead 5head.
He isn't perfect but he is one hell of a man. You can tell he is passionate about economics and is pretty funny in class. Exams were challenging for the most part but assignments were a breeze.
Lack of practice materials. For example, there's really only past papers and tutorial questions. While there are textbook q's they do not always come with solutions. The midterm average is low and the final was hard. There should be curves at the end of tests when they are not meeting standards. That way students know where they stand.
Horrible. Lectures never got through the material and taught different things in different lecture sections. Expectations for test material were unclear. Grading criteria for written assignments were unclear. Didn't answers tons of student questions on piazza. Few materials to study in preparation for tests. Avoid at all costs.
Mumbles and talks in a monotone voice. Many female students waste time&money in lectures texting on their cell phones, ignores students and making up excuses, skip class, moves seats away for no reason, sitting in big groups refusing to chat to others, lies, getting in relationships. These students shouldn't be at Uni at all. Avoid him at all costs
I have no words for this, except for, he is lecture and test heavy. The assignments and tests were graded very slowly, they take more than a MONTH to mark. They also mark kind of tough as well, and the tests in winter 2023 (midterms and final) had a combined weight of 85%. 85! Overall, my experience with him in ECO102 was VERY bad.
Lecture heavy, missing recordings for some lec sections, slides unhelpful for midterm/final studying, txtbook covers theory for q's, he'd suggest to study 2+ methods of computing things(confusing). I think tutorials helped apply our knowledge, but imo the final didn't test what he recomended we review, a shame cuz the concepts were interesting.
This course is intellectually stimulating. Lectures can be monotone at times. This course requires the application from theories learned in textbook and lecture to midterms and exams, which is a good way to test our understanding. There is definitely a difference from memorizing and truly understanding the material. Overall, I enjoyed the course.
I honestly enjoyed his lectures due to the fact that it is only an hour long. After a while, you will just used to his handwriting and he is very accessible before and after class. I do agree that his tests are hard but as long as you understand the concept, you will be fine.
He was not too bad a prof, just the class could be difficult without enough studying. 85% of the final grade being only exams was rough though.
While kind, he wasn't a good prof. Lectures were boring and difficult to follow and his handwriting was often ineligible (this is not an exaggeration!!). Grading overly relied on exams (which were difficult to complete in the allotted time and marked with very little leniency, even if your answer was right), making it difficult to succeed.
85% counts for test, not much thing mentioned in the lecture,his lecture is useless
In the macroeconomics taught by this professor, I learned how to read the textbook by myself, and use Chat GPT to understand and learn knowledge to face the exam. Good first year learning experience for me ;)
Prof V is super kind and always willing to answer questions or review lecture concepts. Although the lectures cover a lot of content, which can be daunting, Prof V is excellent at breaking everything down and providing examples. Quizzes and tests are very fair. My only criticism is that there are not many practice questions provided.
He doesn't put much effort into his lectures or recordings. The tests are very different from how he teaches the content, almost s if they were done by another prof.
He definitely provides enough resources for students to FULLY prepare for the exam. Students giving him a bad rating are those who don't bother trying. He is monotonous during lectures, but very accessible and helpful inside and outside of class. Put in effort and you will succeed.
worst prof i've met. making non-sense on his classes and the recordings, but too hard test! The attendance is mandatory, quiz every week. 4 midterms and one 45% counted final!!WHAT KIND OF THIS SCALR FOR?! too heavy workload!!For God sake,i'm not just taking his lessons only in one term!! DON"T CHOOSE Nathanael Vellekoop!!UNLESS you wanna D!!!
PLEASE AVOID HIM!! As a new professor, he is really monotonic. His exam questions are weird. Even if you practice many of the questions, you will still be surprised by his exams. One of the average score for a test is about 50...
Extremely monotonous lectures, always made everyone sleepy. The class isn't the worst if you put in work. Similar to ECO101.
This is the man that looked us in the eye and swore the final was going to greatly depend on the material after the second midterm. He told us to study options as that would be the main focus of the exam. Not only did the final contain just one options question, 5/6 questions were direct copies of last year's Mississauga final.
The prof explicitly misled the class on the distribution of material to be covered on a final that was almost exactly the same (5/6 questions) as the 2022 Mississauga final that is posted on the exam repository. Honestly if you're going to recycle the final at least be honest about the coverage.
Guaranteed that the final would be "about 60% options" - not only was this a lie, with only 1/6 questions being about options, but the final was actually a recycled paper from UTM and focused almost entirely on minutia from the first half of the semester. Further, Vellekoop was always late (sometimes by 20+ minutes) and failed to cover all content.
dont listen to everyone else okay this man is so kind and all that is wrong is the way he talks during lectures let him live in peace
Prof. Vellekoop (pronounced "vell-uh-cop" and not "vell-uh-coop" btw) is super nice and approachable. He has a dry sense of humour. ECO102 is notorious for being a hard course despite the prof. You need to spend lots of time to understand the intuition behind each concept, but when you do, you'll do well. Don't listen to the negative comments.
Definitely the worst professor Ive had. Tests are much harder in comparison to the other class, and his slides, lectures, and videos are unbelievably boring and difficult to follow. Genuinely don't know how this guy makes a living by teaching students. His handwriting is also like a first grader's and he talks like he has a speech impedement???
Bro, you still got chance to survive if you don't take his class. RUN.
Super funny, just learn and apply exactly what he says during lectures. he also posts very nice lecture recordings if you need them
I did decently on the midterms (around 10% above average both times), did very well on the assignments, then my grade got absolutely tanked by the final. Still did okay in the end, but definitely don't count on the final to boost your grade, because it lowered most people's, as it was worth 45% and was much harder than the midterms.
Above-average prof by UofT standards. Very kind and explains concepts fairly well. His real-life examples are very good. Goes the extra mile by posting lecture videos. Markschemes for tests are harsh but fair. Go to class, attend tutorials, and read the assigned readings.
He's not as bad as people make him seem. He is very organized in his lectures and both midterms were fair. Final was harder because of the two different profs that taught the course this year.
not the best lecturer, and somewhat disorganized. however, vellekoop does his best to update the piazza & answer questions. while there WAS a midterm grade gap between vellekoop's class & tyler paul, all eco102 sections performed identically on the common portion of the final, so i would not say vellekoop's teaching put students at a disadvantage.
As long as you read the textbook and focus on his lecture material, the course is doable
People who had him in the winter term got screwed by the final exam which was harder than the midterms. In summer, the experience was good overall. One midterm and it was fair but make sure to pay attention to small details that might now be super emphasized but mentioned in the lectures because, he tests on those. Final was also overall fine.
It was my first time taking ECO102, I studied using past midterms is workshops, and lecture videos, didn't use textbook at all and secured a 79%. He is a good teacher use his materials and u will get the 63%
Don't know why he gets so much hate. HIs lectures are good for reviewing, videos are filled with lots of details, office hours are amazing. Midterm and final exam was really fair. Sad he left UofT :(
grading schemes often unclear, for assignments no one really knew why and how they got a certain mark. lectures were boring.
Professor Vellekoop's ECO102 can be challenging, but engaging with the course materials pays off. Lecture videos and past exams are helpful study tools, and Unstuck study can supplement preparation. Overall, a fair course if you put in the effort.
Not very bad professor, but some of his explanations are pretty weird to be honest.
he took a lot of time going through each topic in his lecture videos, sometimes it might be a bit slow, but he really makes sure to explain everything. and in his lecture workshops he includes common topics that student find difficult and further explains them without the students having to ask, i really liked this prof.
Tests were pretty easy. I barely watched the recorded lecture videos and just studied everything based off his slides. Didn't read the textbook that often. Just do the practice problems/quizzes and memorize everything to do well. Lectures were great, would recommend to take it online.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
35%
Textbook Required
0%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.32 avg changeRatings by Course
ECO101102
5.0
(2)ECO101
3.3
(7)ECO102
2.7
(84)ECO358
1.7
(15)ECO351
1.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
ECO101102
4.0
ECO102
3.9
ECO358
3.9
ECO101
3.7
ECO351
3.0