Daria Scala

This professor has taught: AGNR301, PLCY301, PLCY740, PUAF301
Information Review
Daria Scala
AGNR301

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/10/2018
Professor Scala means well and clearly puts a LOT of time/effort into her lectures. Unfortunately, she does not have the greatest hold over the class. She allows electronic use (phones for clicker questions and laptops for notes), but spends 10 minutes of each class reminding students (in a 200 person lecture) that they should not be using technology for anything non-lecture related, and eventually started having TAs walk up and down aisles peering over student screens and kicking them out if they had social media or other non-lecture related materials up. Felt like an invasion of privacy. The class itself is fairly little work. Participation is 35% of the grade and involves answering clicker questions in lecture, while the rest of the course includes a group project (3 part - 15%), midterm (20%), and final exam (30%). Homework includes readings that are REALLY specifically asked about on clicker questions (to the point that even if you did the reading, you might not know the answer). Other questions are more fair, many give points as long as any answer was put in, and a couple are extra credit. It is NOT hard to get an A, but is takes some effort. She will tell you on day 1 that you do not need to take notes in her course BUT DO NOT LISTEN. Exam questions will ask a specific topic she discussed and tell you to "list three examples we discussed in class". She gives you all potential exam questions in advance, so if you have good notes it is very easy to prepare. I received over 100% on both the midterm and the final, but I took good notes (a lot of the class did not per her advice). The book she assigns (Capitalism 3.0) is actually pretty interesting and the exams pull from it a lot, so do actually read it. DO NOT BUY it because she provides a pdf version of it to you on ELMS. Overall an okay class. Frustrating at times, but not unreasonable in the end. She tries and will likely improve over time as she is a very new professor.