An Open Letter To My Intro Econ Students I

To the Re-takers and Sibling of an Old Student,

I know who you are. Oh, re-taker. You disappeared from my discussion section last year three months into the course without a word about withdrawing. I can only assume you went to the professor, without consulting me, and somehow managed to worm a retroactive withdrawal out of his kind old heart (he did have a preference for blonds). How confident you must have been, after two semesters, hearing that his replacement for Fall and Spring did nothing to revise his course, that you would face the exact same material. You might even get the same quiz questions and homework. How confident you looked. Until you read the syllabus. Let me demonstrate your facial expressions through emoticons as I read the subjects to be covered, and the new book, and the entirely new direction for an intro course that had not changed in probably fifteen years:
:-D ->
:-) ->
:-| ->
:-( ->
>:-( ->
>:-0 ->
X-(

Yet you have not dropped now, nor have either of us acknowledged the fact that we know we've met before, in Snow Hall, and I put up with your after class, half-efforts then as a GTA. But this is my course now; you're going to either work in my class or just drop it again.

To the little sibling of one of my former students. Your older sister sat through my class without a word. In fact if your last name had not been so strange, I would not have even realized. It must have been a shock to ask that first day, trying to seem very knowledgeable if we would be covering Economic History, to hear my frank response, "we will not be covering economic history." I hope you have more than your sister's notes. They must have been good; she did get an A after all. But that's about a week and a half worth that are now completely useless, except for your own enrichment.

To the suspected retaker. I have access to previous semester's photo rosters, and no one in the undergraduate program seems to understand the concept of FERPA. I'll find you. I'm fascinated by the amount of notes already taken that you bring in to class, and then promptly sleep on. Perhaps if you woke up every now and then you might realize this is not the same course as last Spring. Best of luck on our first test.

What I am hinting at, is I have spent the last two months chipping away at redesigning this course, and I have a particular result that I expect from my students.
I outright stated the basic question I want you all to be able to answer in my course. And if by the end of the semester, when the final hits and you're still not able to give a credible answer to that question, then be very concerned for your grade, and your ability to function in this "brave new world" of economic issues.

Good luck.

P.S. When I ask you to give two examples of "market failures", just fyi: "GM, AIG" is not an acceptable answer. Very funny though.