[G9007] International Economics

Extremely personable face-to-face, but a bit rambling and unclear in the lecture. The blame partly lies in the size of the class, 200+ students. With a class this big, in Altschul auditorium, it's difficult to keep students engaged.
This one time, she spent about 50 minutes on a slide show of the Italian highway system. Somewhat interesting? Germane? Doubtful. The saving grace has to be the recitation sessions, which are composed of about 20 students, and where you can actually ask questions and deal with the quantitative part of the course.

Although I initially didn't like Prof. Della Valle, as a person I warmed to her quite a bit. She really makes an effort to be helpful and available to the students. However, a good effort does not make a good professor. She is not very good at teaching. Often her explanations are confusing and unhelpful. I found it generally easier to learn the material on my own than get confused in class.

She does work hard, so hopefully he teaching skills will improve somewhat.