Teaching
Awards
- Outstanding Graduate Instructor of the Year, Department of Economics, Virginia Tech, 2024
Teaching Experiences
- Intermediate Microeconomics (in-person), Department of Economics, Virginia Tech, Spring 2026
- Principal Microeconomics (asynchronous), Department of Economics, Virginia Tech, Winter 2026
- Intermediate Microeconomics (in-person), Department of Economics, Virginia Tech, Fall 2025
- Intermediate Microeconomics (in-person), Department of Economics, Virginia Tech, Fall 2024
- Principal Microeconomics (online), Department of Economics, Virginia Tech, Summer 2024
- Intermediate Microeconomics (in-person), Department of Economics, Virginia Tech, Fall 2023
- Intermediate Microeconomics (online), Department of Economics, Virginia Tech, Summer 2023
Teaching Assistance Experience
- Econometrics Methods & Introduction of Forecasting (Spring 2024, Spring 2022 (Virginia Tech))
- Principles of Microeconomics (Spring 2023 (Virginia Tech))
- Development Econ & Middle East Econ (Fall 2021, 2022, Spring 2021 (Virginia Tech))
- Data Science for Quantitative Finance (Spring 2022 (Virginia Tech))
- Microeconomics Theory (Fall 2019, 2015 (Sharif University of Technology))
- Applied Econometrics (Spring 2016 (Sharif University of Technology))
- Financial Econometrics (Spring 2015 (Sharif University of Technology))
Teaching Evaluations
Teaching evaluation scores rotate every 10 seconds
Student Feedback
What did the instructor do that most helped in your learning?
"He worked through problems at a pace that was simple to follow. He overexplained every step, which I see as a good thing as there was no confusion whatsoever with his solution process."
"The professor was very communicative and quick to respond to emails with any questions. He would go out of his way to send screenshots of examples to help me understand any problems that I was having difficulty understanding."
"Professor Shahbazian made himself very available to help his students. He consistently asked for questions in class and made time between concepts for us to reflect and digest the material."
"I had to take a lot of personal time off from class this semester with unfortunate family issues, and Professor Arin was extremely supportive in helping me make sure I was staying on top of material that I'd missed."
"Very structured classes that were straight to the point and made sense. Very clear instruction."
"I think the quizzes in class really helped me in learning the material because I was able to check my understanding of the material while in class, which would allow me to determine how much help I needed to understand the material."
"Provided the class with a recording of the lecture and also the lecture power point with notes. I have been working full time during this course, and during the actual lecture time I can only listen to it. So having the ability to watch the lectures and follow along with the notes, after a full day of work, has been a huge help to me!"
"Posting his class notes from each class and having a very organised Canvas really helped navigating through the course easily. Having quizzes at the end of each class was very helpful in clearing any doubts from that day's class."
"I liked that the power points were posted before class and then I could work along with the professor as we went through problems. This way I didn't have too worry about making sure all information was copied and I could just focus and listen on the content."
Additional Comments
"Thank you for a wonderful semester! One of the most straightforward, helpful, and communicative professor I've ever had."
"Thank you, Professor Arin. I wouldn't have been able to do as well as I have been in this course without your continued support with my personal conflicts. I really enjoyed this course, as I enjoy calculus and differential equations and was happily surprised to see it in this course, I'm excited to see how macroeconomic theory goes."
"This is one of the best professors that I've had at Tech. He is fair and personable. He explains things well and seems to really care about us and our grades."
"You did an incredible job this semester! I remember reading your earlier messages about being nervous for teaching this class, but you hit every mark on the dot! Thank you so much for this great semester and always being a huge help for any issue I had."
"Great teacher. He really set the course up in a way that made it easy to understand. He really cares about his students and wants them to succeed which is rare in my experience."
"This is by far one of the best economic classes I have taken in terms of instructor content and communication. I liked how all concepts and theories would be defined and applied, and then we would practice those applications."
"One of the most effective professors when it comes to math, I rarely succeed with math and this class was an exception."
"Professor Shahbazian is invested in the academic success of his students, not just in his own class but overall. His advice helped me understand my choices in continuing to study economics, and I really appreciate that kindness."
"I really enjoyed Professor Shahbazian's class and applaud his teaching skills as a graduate student as well. I think he explained the course subject very clearly and was able to answer questions well."
"Arin is a great teacher and explains concepts well. I am glad that he doesn't assume we already know how to do the math/concepts. This is helpful for me since I wasn't familiar with the content/differentiation techniques. It was very helpful to have the problems and concepts explained step by step."
"Instructor Arin Shahbazian did a great job on asking for our feedback and actually applying it and the instructor seems to care about his students' success in this course and our overall college career."
"I really appreciated the homework assignments, as they were clearly structured to teach students the material. There were always less than 10 questions, and they all directly related to the class material of the week."