well.. first of all he is a pretty interesting guy, with his thick italian accent with his constant bravo on most comments or questions that he think are good... however, on some of the lectures u wonder why u even went to the class, i personally slept in about 30% of the lectures.. he is super unorganized and super unpredictable.. for instance, the syllabus is just a piece of crap, he didn't follow it after the 4th week. We were told to write 5 short essay within 10 weeks, but end up writing 2, a midterm essay, and a mini project, and then a final in which we were given 3 topics and hav to write 2 of them. Well I rock on the final, but thanks of the inconsistancy, even with the A- in the final, i end up with a B. Well, a B isn't that bad i guess, but guess what, even after the TA confirmed with me that i've got a B, it appear on my URSA grading that i've got an F, not only me, but my friend who was in the same class got an F too.... what the hell!!! and he is having his happy holidays in Italy now.... how am i suppose to change the grade? Fianl thoughts... he is a okay prof. but seriously, those with serious heart problems, don't mess around with him, because at 8th week he told us that the final will be a final project. Then at the middle of 9th, he came and told us that it is a written essay... wtf.... yeah and the total points for that class is 100.... yeah so every point u get is basically equivalant to 1% isn't that exciting..

Professor Trabalzi genuinely cares about student learning. On the first day of class he touched us all by telling us how lucky we were to be here at UCLA while there were kids working in underground mines around the rest of the world. However, as far as teaching goes, that fact alone would suffice in order for me to retake his class. He jumbles concepts around and it seems as if his topics are remotely connected to each other. On top of that, he has us write a weekly paper (only 2 pages long) on the topics he has lectured on. Not only is it hard to write these papers, they are graded by TA's who always seem to find something inherantly wrong with them and give low grades. I don't think there was one A in the class. For the final, he gave us no clues on what to study for and it seemed that the only way to prepare was to relearn everything that was ever said in the class or every term that was covered in the book. I definately do not recommend this class. You are in for a rude awakening if you think that hard work will get you an A in the class.

Prof. Trabalzi is a great teacher. He's really interested in helping the student. His humor and anecdotes added wonderfully to the subject. The class did seem a little bit on the disorganized side. It sort of resembled the morning show "Good Day L.A.." At some points the class didnt know what was going on. However Prof Trabalzi was always there to help and so was the TA Sasha Cole.

This prof. seems to really care about us learning, but I feel that there could/should be more coordination between the lecture and discussion sections. I get the impression the TA and the prof. don't really like each other very much, and it makes discussion sections rather tense.

The course material is moderately challenging, but the book and the lectures seem to be only slightly related to eachother.

I appreciate the prof. incorporating real-life experience into his lectures, and discussing his life in Italy, as it provides us with enhanced perspectives on the world economy.