Lawrence Martin

School: Michigan State University
Department: Economics
Location: East Lansing, MI
Overall Rating
rated by 21 students
Helpfulness
Clarity
Easiness
Rating Comment
Overall
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Not a great prof. The quizzes that he does every other week do not correlate with the notes that you have in class. Also there is no way to know how to do the problem set most of the time because he does not teach you how to do them.
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Pros: Curves quizes and tests
Free points with homework
puts powerpoints online
Cons: Homework isn't really related to classwork most of the time
Quizzes don't always correlate with what's going in class
Curve is inconsistent and changes frequently
I had a 4.0 coming into the final due to the curve from quizzes alone and after the final he raised the curve by 6 percent which left me with a 3.5. I did better on the exam then the quizzes and was left 6 points short of getting a 4.0. The curve is too inconsistent you can't have a 4.0 for 80% and after the final change it to 86% that's ridiculous unless the average for the final was like 90%. The quizzes have different forms and some are easier than others which can be infuriating. It doesn't help when the asians in the class all have pictures of the quizzes somehow. The homework often couldn't be done just looking from the power points or he barely touched on it in the powerpoint and I often had to go to the help room even though I understand everything discussed in class. He said he's predictable and yet made the curve 6% higher without telling anyone the class average for the final.
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Pros: No midterm
CURVED
Cons: Told us to buy an online textbook that we didn't need at all (40 dollars out the door)
Problem sets, quizzes, and lectures are all very disconnected
Recitation is only when you have the quiz, so there's not chance to learn from the TA
The TAs are not that great. Especially because they are disconnected from Martin and what he is doing.
I gave Prof. Martin one star because that's the lowest rating I could give him. If you can avoid taking him, you should! This class is just really frustrating. All the given material does not connect in any way. He gives sample quizzes that are nothing like the actual quiz. The lectures do not go in depth to any of the concepts or teach the equations. I basically learned everything from google. Then again, I didn't really even learn. Just memorized. That's what this class actually is- memorization. Most of the class fails consistently, but the class is curved, so that helps.
The set up of this class just needs to be revamped. Better yet, he just shouldn't be teaching anymore. I could not tell you a thing that I learned about Macroeconomics.
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Pros: 1. Not much homework
2. Decent curve of the quizzes
Cons: 1. Worst lecturer ever
2. Has no idea what he's talking about
3. The quizzes are not relevant to what we learn in class
4. I have learned slim to none information this semester
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Pros: N/A
Cons: Professor Martin is probably one of the worst professors at this university. He claims that the book jumps around and doesn't make any sense, and the chapters he tells you to read DO NOT correlate with his lessons. But, Martin also does not have any idea how to effectively teach a class, so going to his lectures doesn't help at all either. This is the worst class I have taken, much worse than CSE 101, and I recommend taking it elsewhere if possible.
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Pros: No final
Assignments are not too hard
Online, so all material posted
Cons: Problem sets & quizzes due every week
Quizzes can be pretty hard
Same thing over & over
I took this as an online class over summer. Martin created all the lectures & other material but my actual instructor was Withers. Withers did a good job of explaining all the stuff Martin did a poor job at. Martin usually doesn't really do a great job of explaining the material in the lectures, and he wastes a lot of time in lectures talking about anecdotal type stuff. It's basically all statistics, each section is different but yeah you're going to be interpreting regression tables the whole way. Doesn't teach you anything useful for the future unless you like talking smart to your friends about sports (or maybe you're an econ major), personally I feel like it was a waste of money but overall not the worst class... but definitely not the best.
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If you don't like studying a lot for bi-weekly quizzes, then take another class. His lectures are very straight forward as to what you need to know, but the concepts are a bit harder to grasp, just as any other macro class. Take advantage of the help room, the TAs will get to the root of what you need to know for your quizzes. He gives you practice quizzes that do help as long as you understand the concept of the question, not just memorizing the answer. I spent on average about 4 hours of studying for each quiz which included the use of the help room, ended with a 4 point. Bonus: huge curve. The key to doing well is asking questions!
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Pros: You don't have to go to the lecture to get anything out of the class, not like you would anyways.
Cons: -Horrible lectures and slides.
-Quizzes that are next to impossible to prepare for.
Save yourself and don't deal with this disaster. By halfway through his lectures, he lost everyone's attention and kept rambling about essentially nothing. I would always walk out of the class asking myself why the heck I came, because I quite frankly learned nothing. If you want to skip lectures, good luck studying his powerpoint slides as they are disorganized and are just random bullet points and models that are hard to take away anything from. The best bet to study for the bi-weekly quizzes are the sample quiz, however it is always a shot in the dark with the quizzes. Don't be shocked when you get a 12 out of 20 for a quiz when you thought you were prepared for it. Larry Martin may be a nice guy, but no one gets anything out of his class. I felt like I was just trying to skim by with the quizzes and didn't even get a grasp what was going. He will continue to collect his luxurious 6 figure paycheck and continue to make students hate econ. The choice is yours. Avoid Larry Martin.
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Pros: None
Cons: awful teacher
no textbook
old as hell
so unbelievably disorganized
This guy is an absolute fucking MESS. I never take the time out of my day to write reviews on koofer but I had to say something about this guy, I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't warn other people about this guy. If you read one thing on this comment read this: DO NOT TAKE THIS FUCKING CLASS. Martin is so unbelievably disorganized, take a look at his syllabus, nothing on there is true except for there is just one final and 7 quizzes and you do get to drop one, also he isn't joking when he says there is no text book. I'm sorry but fuck this guy and may god have mercy on his sole
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Pros: you know what if feels like to feel true hate for a stranger
Cons: horribly organized
unfair tests
useless lecture
no textbook
he rants about his personal life
you learn literally nothing about econ
He honestly is the worst professor I have ever had. All he does during lecture is ramble about his personal life and how great he clearly thinks he is. Then you get to go fail a quiz every two weeks that seems to be written for a graduate level course. Keep in mind that you've learned none of the material thats on the quizzes and the problem sets he assigns pertain to 3 or 4 of the questions. He's a self absorbed ass that doesn't care that he's ruining countless GPAs with his average grade of 2.5 (honestly if more than half of the people in your class are failing, its your fault) and he needs to get his shit together.
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Pros: no text book
Cons: Disorganized
There is NO text book in this class,which is definitely RIDICULOUS. Macroeconomic is so abstract. If you learn it without a text book, you could hardly understand what the prof taught in class.
Never put the materials on Angel on time. He wont put it until 10 to 15 minutes before the class. How could student go through the power points?
There will be a,b,c,d forms in the quizzes. Some forms are easier than the other. That is unfair to all students. Also there are A LOT OF MISTAKES in the quizzes even in the answers.
NEVER EVER TAKE HIS CLASS unless you are really good at economics. Try your best to avoid him or you might ruin your own gpa
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Pros: Has problem sets which help your grade all you have to do is do them. He also puts up help videos which basically do them for you.
Cons: Unorganized beyond belief
I took this class in the fall of 2012 with the expectation of getting a good grade after getting a 4.0 in microeconomics and reading the good reviews of Martin. I was sadly mistaken. I went to class regularly and took semi-good notes (I admit they could have been better) but I didn't think they would have to be great due to the fact he posts the powerpoints on angel.. The quizzes are nothing like some examples he gives you. I felt like he was trying to confuse us on the quizzes instead of giving us problems such as ones covered in class and on the problem sets. Overall, I was disappointed with my grade in the class (a 3.0) because I know I could have done better with a more straightforward and organized professor.
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Pros: 1.You get points for your biweekly problem sets on a credit, no credit basis, so just do them and you will receive points correct or not.
2.His lectures are in powerpoint that he uploads to angel, but some slides are left blank for graphs that he goes over in class.
Cons: 1.He is VERY DISORGANIZED!
2.His quiz questions rarely have anything to do with what he would go over in his lectures or on problem sets. Going into a quiz you may feel good, but the second the paper hit the desk and you read the first question you know it wont be a good grade in the end.
Overall, I would not recommend Dr. Martin as an EC 202 prof. He is hard to follow and tends to babble on about things that are completely irrelevant and there is no way of knowing what to expect from him. During the class for Fall 2012 he spoke to the whole class in a lecture about how there were several students who were asking him how they could boost their grade and he said to anticipate what he was going to put on the quizzes...well there is no way of knowing that, so they were all screwed.
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This course was very poorly taught. Martin does not do a good job of relaying the material and the test questions are often very unfair- there is little to no guidance and I actually wish that he had a textbook we could use because his lectures were not effective. Would not recommend this course at all.
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Pros: Funny, nice guy
Cons: -Unorganized
-Makes frequent mistakes on exams/quizzes
-Difficult to follow lectures
-Lectures are different from exams
WARNING: Be careful when reading reviews of Martin. Maybe at one point he made a great Economics professor, but since Fall 2012, his class is a complete disaster.
It was constant chaos, we never got our quizzes or homework back to study, he wouldn't post important information until right before class, and CONSTANTLY made huge errors on quizzes that would require regrading and major changes to be made. If I were you, I would avoid the headache and take Econ 202 with a different professor. Even if you go to every class, it's difficult to understand the material. It's not worth going through the struggle with Martin and have NO chance at earning the grade you deserve.
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Pros: problem sets due every friday and all you have to do is write numbers down to get the points for it.
Cons: He sucks as a professor, he's not organized AT ALL. His quizzes are unfair and he doesn't really teach you anything. JUST RUN NOW, YOU DON"T WANT THIS ASSHOLE AS A PROFESSOR.
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Pros: No Book
Nice Guy
Only one exam (Final)
Cons: Disorganized
No correlation between Quizzes and class material
I will say this about Martin overall he is very knowledgable when it comes to Economics. However, this year was just about a train wreck when it came to course structure. His course consists of 7 quizzes and no recitations, which for a 600 person class is insane. During each lecture he goes through a powerpoint that he has made, which you believe will be on the quizzes/problem sets that he makes you do. However, on just about all of the quizzes there was no correlation between what was learned in class and what was covered on the quiz. He also had a problem with getting grades back to people. It took 2.5 weeks to get a 20 question scantron back to the class. The other problem with the quizzes was that frequently he did not have a correct answer to the questions, which made it difficult to take the quiz. The way he teaches the class is all model based so that if you dont understand how the model works you will fail just about all of his quizzes. He also gives completely different quizzes between forms, on the last quiz that we took the C and D forms of the quiz were considerably easier than A or B.
Overall the course load of this class is not very substantial. With problem sets that literally can take 5 mins to do if you just pay attention a little in class. However, this doesnt help you when it comes to the quizzes.
I think that next year he will correct the course to make it a much more worthwhile course. If you can I would try to avoid him till at least next year.
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Pros: If I could give him no stars I would
Cons: Extremely Disorganized
Prone to Errors
Has completely different exams for each form (often one is substantially easier material)
Has an attitude problem
No Textbook (trust me this will be a con)
Awful lecturer (teaches material in reverse order)
Posts problem sets, practice quizzes and slides too late for them to be helpful (often the night prior to the quiz)
BE VERY CAUTIOUS WHEN LOOKING THROUGH THESE REVIEWS
MARTIN RESTRUCTURED HIS COURSE FALL 2012!
Professor Martin teaches material in the opposite order that it should be taught; the students don't learn anything until he uploads his videos to help us with the problem sets. This is usually very basic information which should be taught prior to his more in depth lectures, which most students find themselves lost in because they are lacking the background information, which wont be taught until later. These problem sets were also not sufficient enough to learn from, and because there was no text book seeking extra practice was often difficult.
Furthermore, He doesn't post the problem sets or sample quizzes soon enough for students to have adequate time to learn the material and seek help on them. (our last one wasn't posted until 7pm the night prior to the quiz, which is 2 hours prior to the help room closing)
A book for this course also would have been helpful, since the lectures were difficult to follow as Martin was often scatter brained, or simply disorganized, jumping between slides. This made it important to have the power points printed out for note taking in order to keep up.However, Professor Martin did not usually post these until 15 minutes prior to class, making it often impossible to print these out.
Professor Martin is also very prone to mistakes, the materials he produces makes it evident that he does not proofread it. The Problem Sets, examinations, and lecture slides are ridden with errors. This is especially annoying when it disrupts you during your exam or causes you to go to help room for material which you understand but are simply stuck on due to the instructors errors.
The most disturbing situation occurred during our quiz this past Friday when many students noticed form C, was starkly different material, and substantially easier than forms A and B. I had form B and my form had very few problems similar to those covered in the sample quiz and problem set and consisted of strictly conceptual based questions. Meanwhile form C contained problems asking for computations of primary and current deficits as well as interest taxes and such. This material is far more straight forward than the material on my form and is unfair to all of the students who were placed at a disadvantage because of this. Many students expressed this to him, however, he didn't seem very concerned about the situation. It also leaves room for question, whether all of his exams were like this, since we never went over them in class and since the forms (except one for final exam review) were ever posted to ANGEL.
It is apparent either Professor Martin does not want to be teaching this class or he is simply incompetent as he often comes to class unprepared and is very unorganized and inconsistent. His disorganization and poor delivery of material have made this course far more difficult than the material being covered would suggest. The students currently enrolled in this course will also be placed at a disadvantage going into future economics courses since they are learning very little from this course.
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Easiness
Pros: Everything is on Angel
Cons: Very unorganized. Does not teach very well
Overall
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Clarity
Easiness
Pros: -Easy to get a good grade
-Not much work need
Cons: -Extremely unorganized
-Doesn't teach everything that we are tested over
Not terrible, but definitely not a good professor

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