Spring 2027

Introduction to Buddhism

Introduction to Buddhism covering its thought, practices, and history, including meditation and compassion from local and translocal perspectives, plus contemporary North American Buddhism.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 5

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.77 GPA, 90.2% A/AB (n=132 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.80 GPA, 92.5% A/AB (n=53 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.76 GPA, 92.9% A/AB (n=56 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Describe Buddhist ways of thinking, organizing knowledge, and navigating the inevitable realities of human existence: birth, death, sickness, aging, suffering, and constant change.

  • Discuss basic Buddhist concepts and use this awareness to become an informed, religiously literate global citizen.

  • Appraise the relevance and applicability of Buddhist resources for the larger human project of living a good and meaningful life.

  • Explain and practice "seeing through Buddhist eyes," a central aim of the academic history of religions approach.

  • Apply our analytical method of studying religion to understanding your own or other religious traditions.

  • Apply close reading techniques and religious historical methods for reading and analyzing primary Buddhist texts in translation.

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2 UW Guide 3

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
ASIAN/HISTORY/RELIGST 308

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Sophomore standing

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.77 GPA, 90.2% A/AB (n=132 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.80 GPA, 92.5% A/AB (n=53 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.76 GPA, 92.9% A/AB (n=56 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Basic thought, practices, and history of Buddhism
  • Buddhism as a contemporary, North American religion

Skills

  • Close reading of primary Buddhist texts in translation
  • Analytical method of studying religion

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 3 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

4 earlier forecasts · 0.10 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1316 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews

No records available.

Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "2b8fc7389b03f4f1b11980ac20c5a60fedd5675e71cf1e536c1bec6b8ee835cd",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}