Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.48 GPA, 67.5% A/AB (n=40 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.40 GPA, 64.2% A/AB (n=67 letter grades).
Fall 2026
Contemporary Economic Issues
Covers current developments across all fields of economics.
Summary
1 / 7
Historical reviews of Elizabeth Kelly, Rasmus Lentz, Stella Chan: Workload and difficulty fluctuate significantly across teaching terms. Some students found homework extremely difficult with few examples, while others noted heavy mid-semester workloads or required pre-class reading responses.
Grade history
↗ average GPA
letter grades
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F
All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors
Prerequisites
Course mapProfessors
Fall 2026No course-specific feedback yet.
Historical instructors & teaching patterns
Historical reviews for David Johnson describe clear, enthusiastic lectures and high student engagement, though exams are not easy. Reviewers note he cares about students and offers extensive office hours, recommending his classes despite the workload required for top grades.
CHRISTOPHER MCKELVEY is recorded teaching in Fall 2024, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
DAVID JOHNSON is recorded teaching in Spring 2018, Spring 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
ELIZABETH KELLY is recorded teaching in Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
GEOFFREY WALLACE is recorded teaching in Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
GWYN PAULEY is recorded teaching in Spring 2018, Spring 2019. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
RASMUS LENTZ is recorded teaching in Spring 2011, Spring 2012. 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
Fall 2026Schedule loads here as you scroll.
| Section | Mode | Enrolled / capacity | Waitlist |
|---|---|---|---|
| LEC 001 | Classroom Instruction | 42 / 72 | 0 |
| DIS 303 | Classroom Instruction | 9 / 5 | 0 |
| DIS 304 | Classroom Instruction | 15 / 5 | 0 |
| DIS 301 | Classroom Instruction | 18 / 5 | 0 |
Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.
Meeting source records
Student experience
the class
Historical reviews for ECON 390 describe a highly variable experience depending on the instructor. Students report everything from engaging, well-supported lectures to frustrating courses with unclear expectations.
Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.80 GPA, 96.3% A/AB (n=27 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.40 GPA, 64.2% A/AB (n=67 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.20 GPA, 50.0% A/AB (n=30 letter grades).
difficulty & workload
Historical reviews of Elizabeth Kelly, Rasmus Lentz, Stella Chan: Workload and difficulty fluctuate significantly across teaching terms. Some students found homework extremely difficult with few examples, while others noted heavy mid-semester workloads or required pre-class reading responses.
Historical reviews of David Johnson, Geoffrey Wallace, Gwyn Pauley, Rasmus Lentz, Stella Chan: Students praised instructors who were enthusiastic, clear, and offered extensive office hours. Conversely, others reported frustration with vague grading rubrics, lack of feedback, or instructors who seemed disinterested in the subject matter.
Topics
Grades
Fall 2026 · 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 5 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.
8 earlier forecasts · 0.16 GPA average error.
Grades over time
Through Fall 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
1283 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.
Selected offering source records
Contemporary Economic Issues
Recorded 2026-09-07Intro Programming: Econ Data
Recorded 2026-09-07Raw records
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"term_id": "1272",
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"title": "Contemporary Economic Issues",
"credits_min": 3,
"credits_max": 4,
"typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
},
{
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"title": "Intro Programming: Econ Data",
"credits_min": 3,
"credits_max": 4,
"typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
}
]Rate My Professors
Student reviews
Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.
Read original reviews
Madgrades
Grade history
Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.
Explore recorded gradesModel outputs & technical records
nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4
LLM outputs across runs
Full model traces
Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.
Model & dataset provenance
{
"model": "nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4",
"model_revision": "1355db6a052410cfd62085d94b58866fd0f2c3c5",
"task_version": "14",
"output_id": "817d2372a64364ccab0fb76342a1074f630ea1751697cfeda3b2e116bda0485d",
"requirements_status": "valid",
"dataset_revision": "e243353dcb7d79b7247ced91d69443ef4c2a6349",
"observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00"
}