Spring 2027

Career Management for Engineers

CAREER MANAGEMENT FOR ENGINEERS develops career and life skills in financial management, job search, networking, branding, ethics, and licensure, while addressing future trends in technology, climate, diversity, and sustainability.

offering recorded1 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Anita Thompson3.8/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · John Shutske

The course was rated as having low difficulty, with clear expectations regarding what was required of students.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify the basic personal financial management skills necessary for early-career engineers, including preparing for costs such as housing, healthcare, and transportation.

  • Recognize and implement select improvement strategies in the areas of interpersonal skills, communication, and social media facility to build personal and professional networks and create a “brand” as an engineer.

  • Identify and explain the benefits of direct involvement in one’s engineering professional society/organization, including building ongoing professional relationships and pursuing ongoing professional development and lifelong learning.

  • Explain the processes and professional benefits associated with completing the FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) exam and becoming a PE (Professional Engineer).

  • Apply the Engineering Code of Ethics to specific cases and scenarios that present ethical challenges for engineers around decision making, product safety, economic tradeoffs, sustainability, and other issues.

  • Provide examples of the importance of understanding diversity (gender, ethnicity, culture, etc.) as a practicing engineer as it relates to working on an engineering team and best serving a global customer base.

  • Develop a long-range, comprehensive career plan that includes goal setting, plans for lifelong learning, personal financial management/decision making, and other factors, synthesizing the semester’s class content.

  • Recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations and make informed judgments, which must consider the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts. (ABET Outcome 4)

  • Acquire and apply new knowledge as needed, using appropriate learning strategies. (ABET Outcome 7)

  • Apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors. (ABET Outcome 2)

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
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F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
BSE 308

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 5.00/5 from 3 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

No course-specific feedback yet.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

JOHN SHUTSKE is recorded teaching in Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

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

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 800

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

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · John Shutske

Professor Shutske prioritized student understanding and provided excellent feedback, making the course highly applicable to real life.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.74 GPA, 86.8% A/AB (n=53 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.94 GPA, 96.9% A/AB (n=65 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.89 GPA, 92.0% A/AB (n=50 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · John Shutske

The course was rated as having low difficulty, with clear expectations regarding what was required of students.

Past student reviews · John Shutske

Students found the instructor's focus on understanding and clear communication to be a key positive aspect of the experience.

Topics

  • Time management, housing selection, financial management, job search, professional networking, and branding.
  • Leadership, professional ethics, and registration/licensure.
  • Future trends in digital technology, climate change, diversity, and sustainability affecting engineering careers.

Skills

  • Career and life skills including time management, financial management, job search, networking, branding, and professional ethics.
  • Long-range career planning with goal setting and lifelong learning strategies.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · 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

1280 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.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
BSE 308 · Spring 2027

Career Management for Engineers

Recorded 2026-10-29
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261029T213040-0fa85c20",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-29 21:30:40.248904+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:112:000513",
    "course_id": "BSE 308",
    "course_uid": "course_981218410719d06feb28d412",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "000513",
    "source_subject_id": "112",
    "title": "Career Management for Engineers",
    "credits_min": 1,
    "credits_max": 1,
    "typically_offered": "Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-29

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": "47772279fb035a772ad163b05d501b0a72af40cb62654b872bf5298f4b9f3d5e",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "c9cd06eaa45f9ddf7e69faa38b89ff3d3dd995dd",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-29 21:30:40.248904+00:00"
}