Spring 2027

Western Culture: Science, Technology, Philosophy I

Explores Western science and technology from antiquity to the 17th century within philosophical and social contexts.

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

Summary

1 / 8

Past student reviews · Florence Hsia

Lectures were dense, and students emphasized that attendance was necessary to keep up with the material and avoid being lost.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify and explain critical developments in how the natural world has been analyzed and understood across premodern and early modern times and cultures.

  • Identify and explain how science and its history have served a wide range of purposes in the premodern and early modern periods.

  • Recognize and evaluate how premodern and early modern science has been deeply shaped by its historical, social, cultural, intellectual, and material contexts.

  • Interpret and evaluate historical sources to construct persuasive arguments concerning science and its history in the premodern and early modern periods.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Not open to students with credit forHIST SCI 201.

ILS 201

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

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

FLORENCE HSIA is recorded teaching in Fall 2006, Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MICHAEL H. SHANK is recorded teaching in Spring 2007, Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Fall 2014. 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

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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

Past student reviews · Florence Hsia

Students described Florence Hsia as an amazing lecturer who made dense material easy to understand, noting that her explanations were clear and informative.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.57 GPA, 72.7% A/AB (n=110 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.63 GPA, 86.3% A/AB (n=139 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.55 GPA, 79.3% A/AB (n=121 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Florence Hsia

Lectures were dense, and students emphasized that attendance was necessary to keep up with the material and avoid being lost.

Past student reviews · Florence Hsia

One student found the professor friendly and memorable, noting she remembered them over a year later despite the student never attending office hours.

Topics

  • Major developments in Western science and technology from antiquity to the 17th century.
  • Philosophical and social contexts of scientific development.

Skills

  • Identify and explain critical developments in the analysis and understanding of the natural world.
  • Evaluate how science is shaped by historical, social, cultural, intellectual, and material contexts.
  • Construct persuasive arguments using historical sources regarding the history of science.

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 4 recent 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.

5 earlier forecasts · 0.21 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
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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
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "aa08d24e2c53e28d31e86a0372943f2d0caceda2e90fdbae1ac8c89724847f5e",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}