Spring 2027

Colloquium for Undergraduate Majors

An undergraduate colloquium orienting students to geography as a scholarly discipline, covering its development, concepts, methods, and research skills.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 William Gartner3.7/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · William Gartner

Students reported a difficulty level of 4, indicating the course presented a significant challenge.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Conceptualize and implement an original research project.

  • Collect and analyze primary data.

  • Describe the breadth of geographic phenomena and arguments.

  • Assess geographic explanations.

  • Integrate knowledge across disciplines to develop novel perspectives.

  • Present geographic arguments in written, oral, and visual formats.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
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AB
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Declared in Geography or Cartography and Geographic Information Systems undergraduate programs

  • Declared in Geography or Cartography and Geographic Information Systems undergraduate programs
GEOG 565

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • Declared in Geography or Cartography and Geographic Information Systems undergraduate programs

Professors

Spring 2027
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.78/5 from 27 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.

For this course: 5.0/5 raw quality · 4.0/5 difficulty · 1 reviews

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

Past student reviews · William Gartner

William Gartner taught the course with incredible passion and was highly supportive of student groups. He was flexible and understanding, which helped a former student feel more engaged with the subject matter. The student described him as an amazing professor who effectively flipped their perspective on the material.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.77 GPA, 87.5% A/AB (n=40 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.80 GPA, 91.5% A/AB (n=47 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.88 GPA, 94.9% A/AB (n=39 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

WILLIAM GARTNER is recorded teaching in Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, 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 / 500

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 · William Gartner

William Gartner is described as an incredibly passionate and supportive professor who can transform a student's perspective on the subject matter.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.77 GPA, 87.5% A/AB (n=40 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.80 GPA, 91.5% A/AB (n=47 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.88 GPA, 94.9% A/AB (n=39 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · William Gartner

Students reported a difficulty level of 4, indicating the course presented a significant challenge.

Past student reviews · William Gartner

The instructor was flexible and understanding, providing strong support for group topics and helping students succeed in their work.

Topics

  • Development, objectives, concepts, methods, institutions, and trends in geography
  • Geographic phenomena and arguments
  • Interdisciplinary integration for novel geographic perspectives

Skills

  • Conceptualizing and implementing original research projects
  • Collecting and analyzing primary data
  • Describing geographic phenomena and assessing geographic explanations
  • Integrating interdisciplinary knowledge to develop novel perspectives
  • Presenting geographic arguments in written, oral, and visual formats

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
GEOG 565 · Spring 2027

Colloquium for Undergraduate Majors

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:416:008270",
    "course_id": "GEOG 565",
    "course_uid": "course_65f8386b64eb2b47b0da8114",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "008270",
    "source_subject_id": "416",
    "title": "Colloquium for Undergraduate Majors",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall"
  }
]
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 2026-10-14

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": "9d46ede16f55111c5fc2e3dab55ad5d573c31428c644e8e1ee0cffd5b37b3162",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}