MEC 2900
Microeconomics
Provides a rigorous analysis of the behavior of consumers and firms in competitive and monopoly markets; oligopoly markets are introduced. Consumer topics include preferences and utility, budget constraints, consumer optimal choice and demand curves. Firm topics include technology, cost minimization and profit maximization. The course concludes with price determination in monopoly and competitive markets, and an introduction to oligopoly and game theory. The focus of the course is on microeconomics as a decision making tool for consumers and managers.
Instructors
Amanda Friedenberg, Andrew Gray, Cecilia Diaz Campo, Daniel Gottlieb, David Ahn, Giorgio Zanarone, Glenn Macdonald, Kelly Bishop, Mosi Rosenboim, Patrick Rishe, Paulo Natenzon, Rajeev Bhattacharya, Vladimir Mares
Reviews
Take MEC2900 w/ Gray. He is knowledgeable, will stop and answer your questions in class or outside of class, and is a great lecturer. The class is difficult with hard exams, but Gray gives you everything you need to be able to succeed in the class. There is an Olin curve for every test. Study the slides/practice exams heavily and you will do fine.
7/1/2026
Andrew Gray is a great lecturer and individual. He was very accessible outside class and genuinely wanted his students to do well. Much of the course is determined by whether you beat the average on the exams. It is hard to get an A- or A if you do average on the exams, even with 100% in everything else. Difficult class but great professor.
7/1/2026
MEC290 is just a hard class, period. Gray is a decent professor but you will need to work hard in the course.
5/24/2026
Good professor who is very down to earth with the students. Had some very entertaining lectures, especially when diving into the conceptual connections to real life on the subject matter. Other lectures that were focused on solving mathematical problems could be boring and tedious.
4/24/2026
Professor Ahn is incredible. Hilarious, engaging, and clearly understands economics. Lectures at a very quick pace and you often have to look back at notes to understand the material, but he provides a running list of notes for reference (no slides or lecture recordings). Practice exams and problem sets are nearly identical to exams.
4/16/2026
His lectures are long and boring. The exams are so hard. I've heard he's the better option though.
4/15/2026
Prof. CCD is supportive and responsive to feedback, but not an effective lecturer. Her disorganized lectures make it easy to lose track of the material. The homework is excessively long. They help learn the content, but it is very painful to do. Don't take her class if you're expecting light work and easy grades.
2/17/2026
Great professor, very caring, and explains everything in detail. Easy to reach and ask questions, the lectures are interesting. Try to understand everything in-depth, because the material by itself is quite hard. All exams open notes, but nothing extraordinary. If you attend every lecture and do all your homework, you should be ready.
12/4/2025
Go to lectures as they as super helpful in succeeding in the class.
11/12/2025
Andrew Gray is an amazing professor. Genuinely cares about students and works to make sure everyone grasps the material. He does teach very difficult classes, hence the difficulty rating; however, he does his best to convey all of the material to students in an easy-to-understand manner.
11/7/2025
Genuinely the worst professor I have had in Olin. Her class is 95% lecture, most are useless because she only goes over the easiest problems to explain topics. While exams are much harder. Psets are minimum 17 pgs that graded on accuracy. Asked for an extension on a pset because of competing deadlines 4 days in advance & she told me to drop pset.
11/4/2025
Tests were hard but he had a good curve, lectures were boring but he knew the subject well
10/27/2025
Class is alright but problem sets are absolutely awful, like genuinely the most disgusting HW I've seen at WashU. Often 20+ pages long. She'll have parts a - i for a question, and then parts i - iv for each letter. This ends up with one question having 30+ different parts, and each problem set usually has around 5 questions.
10/16/2025
Firstly, I want to acknowledge that Professor Ahn is an amazing person. He is very funny and cares about his students. However, his lectures are difficult to follow, and he doesn't always fully address questions when asked.
8/27/2025
exams are curved but were pretty difficult, good lecturer but moves quick
7/7/2025
I would suggest going to all the lectures because you can feel lost just looking at the slides. He's a funny guy, and you can tell he really cares about his students. He releases all the past tests as practice tests and if you can do those you can do well in all the exams.
5/14/2025
His lectures are engaging and he's a really enthusiastic guy. He's always willing to help and if you understand the concepts you'll thrive.
5/10/2025
He's funny and has a few entertaining stories but his lectures felt rushed and were unclear. The majority of us were confused, and the only reason why I did ok on exams was because I studied A LOT for each exam. His handwritten slides were hard to understand in and out of class, but I heard other micro professors had slides in the same format.
5/6/2025
I love him and his class. MEC 290 is definitely notorious in Olin but I liked it and it was my favorite course. Taking MEC 290 with him made me want to go to every single class, review on time, and study hard for the exams. One thing is that the engagement grade is not only based on poll eve but also on how active you are in the classroom.
5/3/2025