ITALIAN 110
Dante in English
Description: Lecture, three hours. Close study of one of world's greatest literary geniuses, particularly of his masterpiece, "Divine Comedy," the archetypal medieval journey through the afterworld. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Did I miss something? Because I read these other reviews and definitely think I did. Betti is quite possibly the worst professor I've had at this school. I dread going to class and feel like everytime I do, it is merely read-along-with-Betti hour, as all he does is stand up in front of the sleeping class, reading verbatim from the Dante book, and telling useless anecdotes that are both uninteresting and not informative in the least. It's also disturbing how he storms out of the room immediately after class. You have to run out the door after him to talk to him...and he NEVER announced any sort of office hours for the class. Perhaps he's easy (I don't know yet as I still haven't received my midterm back yet) but at least for me, the lack of intellectual benefits far override a lack of difficulty. In sum, just avoid his class if you have any interest in learning something.
Did I miss something? Because I read these other reviews and definitely think I did. Betti is quite possibly the worst professor I've had at this school. I dread going to class and feel like everytime I do, it is merely read-along-with-Betti hour, as all he does is stand up in front of the sleeping class, reading verbatim from the Dante book, and telling useless anecdotes that are both uninteresting and not informative in the least. It's also disturbing how he storms out of the room immediately after class. You have to run out the door after him to talk to him...and he NEVER announced any sort of office hours for the class. Perhaps he's easy (I don't know yet as I still haven't received my midterm back yet) but at least for me, the lack of intellectual benefits far override a lack of difficulty. In sum, just avoid his class if you have any interest in learning something.
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Most Helpful Review
I have mixed feelings about Andrea. I love him and I love his personality, but his style of teaching makes it difficult to do well even if you really do know the material. This is because on the 5 quizzes, he asks you to identify quotes by the person who said it, which canto (like chapter) it is in, and the context of the quote. I knew the material VERY well I mean like I spent a lot of time studying and I knew everything BUT when it came to identifying which canto it is from, it was difficult for me and for other students too. We did not see the relevance of understanding which canto it is from and we felt like we're not really learning the material or the bigger picture of everything Dante teaches us but we're actually just memorizing and cramming material. Other than that, Andrea also grades pretty harshly on his essays. You really should work on them weeks in advance and ask for help in his office. He grades on things like style of your essay as well. The essays are only 4 pages but actually I would rather have a larger limit because I felt like I could not articulate my thoughts enough in only 4 pages. i felt like the class was a memorization. It got interesting at times but it just stressed me out way more than I expected it to. It is not a lot of reading, as each canto is like 5 pages and he usually asks you to read 3 or 4 cantos for each class, but I feel like for what I learned in the class, I could not write a thorough essay. A lot of times he went over little things in the text in class but we never fully reached a point where it was like the meaning of all of these little things. I felt like we were going over all these things in the text but never reached a deeper understanding of theme in Dante. Only at the very last 2 weeks of the class did I feel I was understanding the theme. Overall, Andrea is a tougher grader, but he is a really nice guy OH and he is extremely good looking lol (the italian accent and knowledge of everything adds). I would recommend this class to people, but only if they are willing to work hard. It is not insanely difficult, but it does require effort, especially for the essays and passage identifications. You do not have to really read the material thoroughly to do well in the class, this is because everything he goes over in class is on the quizzes only. He will not surprise you with something he never talked about. Anyway, I ended up with an A.
I have mixed feelings about Andrea. I love him and I love his personality, but his style of teaching makes it difficult to do well even if you really do know the material. This is because on the 5 quizzes, he asks you to identify quotes by the person who said it, which canto (like chapter) it is in, and the context of the quote. I knew the material VERY well I mean like I spent a lot of time studying and I knew everything BUT when it came to identifying which canto it is from, it was difficult for me and for other students too. We did not see the relevance of understanding which canto it is from and we felt like we're not really learning the material or the bigger picture of everything Dante teaches us but we're actually just memorizing and cramming material. Other than that, Andrea also grades pretty harshly on his essays. You really should work on them weeks in advance and ask for help in his office. He grades on things like style of your essay as well. The essays are only 4 pages but actually I would rather have a larger limit because I felt like I could not articulate my thoughts enough in only 4 pages. i felt like the class was a memorization. It got interesting at times but it just stressed me out way more than I expected it to. It is not a lot of reading, as each canto is like 5 pages and he usually asks you to read 3 or 4 cantos for each class, but I feel like for what I learned in the class, I could not write a thorough essay. A lot of times he went over little things in the text in class but we never fully reached a point where it was like the meaning of all of these little things. I felt like we were going over all these things in the text but never reached a deeper understanding of theme in Dante. Only at the very last 2 weeks of the class did I feel I was understanding the theme. Overall, Andrea is a tougher grader, but he is a really nice guy OH and he is extremely good looking lol (the italian accent and knowledge of everything adds). I would recommend this class to people, but only if they are willing to work hard. It is not insanely difficult, but it does require effort, especially for the essays and passage identifications. You do not have to really read the material thoroughly to do well in the class, this is because everything he goes over in class is on the quizzes only. He will not surprise you with something he never talked about. Anyway, I ended up with an A.
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