Administrative Info

Office Hours

My office is University Hall 817. My office hours for Spring 2025 are:

  • Mondays, 3 PM - 4 PM
  • Wednesdays, 1 PM - 2 PM
  • Fridays, 10 AM - 11 AM

Office hours are completely open. You do not need a reservation to come to office hours. Just come by!

These office hours may ocassionally change: if so, I’ll announce it in discussion sections and on Blackboard. Please have Blackboard email notifications enabled. I plan to hold all office hours in-person. If I need to hold a particular office hour session virtually via Zoom I will make an announcement on Blackboard and provide a Zoom link there. I will not hold office hours on days when the university is closed or during finals week.

I do not take appointments outside of the office hours listed above. Feel free to go to Festus’s (the other TA’s) office hours if mine don’t work for you. Festus’s office hours information is listed in the syllabus. Resources for tutoring outside of class are also available below.

Directions

University Hall is the tallest building on campus. Use the north elevators (not the ones by the coffee shop) to go to the 8th floor. Room 817 is along the east hallway (the one closest to downtown).

See the UIC campus map for directions to University Hall.

Contacting Isaac

Email: dbaum [at] uic [dot] edu

Please be patient with email: I’m a student taking courses, too! I will reply as soon as I can.

What Not To Put In Your Emails

Please, nobody wants to hear about how…

  • you’re puking and that’s why you can’t come to class (🤢)…
  • you missed class because you ordered lunch and it didn’t arrive on time…
  • you missed class because of [some other extremely long and detailed story]…

…and so on. Please keep your emails professional.

Emailing vs. Coming To Office Hours

Questions about administrative stuff are totally fine to ask via email. Administrative stuff includes questions about grades, class cancellations, attendance, etc.

Questions about course material are better for office hours or discussion sections. Course material questions include questions about economics concepts and practice problems. You can email these questions if you want, but these things are usually easier to work out in-person and it may take longer for me to respond.

Messaging on Blackboard

You can message me on Blackboard if you’d like, but I prefer email. I notice emails before Blackboard messages.

The Textbook

This class uses Macroeconomics by Krugman and Wells. You will need online access to Achieve in order to complete graded assignments for the course. If you want a physical copy of the book you can purchase one, but you will still need to purchase online access to Achieve in order to complete graded assignments.

Please purchase the book here or at the UIC bookstore. The price at that link and the price at the bookstore are discounted (though the price at the bookstore may be slightly higher than the price at the link). If you buy the textbook elsewhere (i.e., Amazon) it will be more expensive.

Access the textbook and homework assignments here. Make sure you are regularly checking Achieve to keep up with assigned chapter readings and homework. You are responsible for making sure you complete assigned items on time.

Calculating Your Grade

If you’re interested in calculating your grade during the course I’d recommend creating a calculator in Excel. There are also a number of grade calculators you can use online. I like this one.

Final grades will be calculated (per the syllabus) using the formula below:

\[ \begin{align} 10\% &\times \text{Discussion Attendance } + \\ 10\% &\times \text{LC Assignments on Achieve } + \\ 20\% &\times \text{EOC Assignments on Achieve } + \\ 15\% &\times \text{Midterm 1 } + \\ 15\% &\times \text{Midterm 2 } + \\ 30\% &\times \text{Final Exam} \end{align} \]

Please make sure you are using this formula correctly when calculating your grade.

Other Resources

Tutoring

The UIC Econ Club offers tutoring for ECON 121 (and other econ courses). Check out their website for details.

Isaac is not a tutor. If you need personalized help with ECON 121 outside of lecture, discussion sections, and office hours please seek out tutoring.

Accomodations

If you need accomodations for the course please follow the instructions listed on the syllabus to notify Dr. Pieper that you need accomodations.

If you take exams at the Disability Resource Center please schedule in-person exam appointments with them for the entire semester as early as possible. Exam dates are listed in the syllabus and are very unlikely to change.