Totally pompous, but he does the job. He tries very hard to come across as a cool bohemian, which is totally annoying. He speaks too much Enlglish in class--quite often, rather than taking the pains to explain things in Italian, he quickly switched to English. Take Stephen Twilley instead, if he's around (though, I guess grad students only get stuck doing this once anyway). He follows the syllabus well, teaches you everything you need to know, etc...like, I said he does the job, but his blatant pompousness really irked me.
Workload:
same as every other Columbia Elementary II course.