First-year Seminar in the Social Sciences and Natural Sciences

A first-year seminar exploring interdisciplinary topics in the social and natural sciences.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Fall 2026 Robert Mathieu3.7/5

Summary

1 / 5

Reviewers note the reading material is complex for freshmen, specifically citing 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' as not fun.

Grade history

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

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
INTER-LS 107

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Fall 2026
/5Adjusted rating
/5RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.75/5 from 12 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: 2.5/5 raw quality · 2.5/5 difficulty · 2 reviews

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

Robert Mathieu is described as very belittling and accused of holding sexist views about women in astronomy, with one reviewer advising to avoid the course entirely.

Another reviewer found him nice and the class interesting for understanding astronomy, though they noted the reading material was not enjoyable and suggested the FIG is unnecessary for astronomy majors.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2025: 3.41 GPA, 68.8% A/AB (n=16 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

ROBERT MATHIEU is recorded teaching in Fall 2025. 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 2026

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
SEM 001Classroom Instruction11 / 200

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

Reviews of Robert Mathieu's INTER-LS 107 are sharply divided, with one student calling the course belittling and another finding it interesting and nice.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.85 GPA, 88.2% A/AB (n=17 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.83 GPA, 88.9% A/AB (n=18 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.41 GPA, 68.8% A/AB (n=16 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Reviewers note the reading material is complex for freshmen, specifically citing 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' as not fun.

Students disagree on the value; one advises avoiding the FIG entirely, while another suggests it helps make sense of astronomy but is not suitable for majors.

Topics

  • Interdisciplinary topics in the social and natural sciences

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Fall 2026.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Not enough comparable courses for Fall 2026 in UW–Madison.

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
INTER-LS 107 · Fall 2026

First-Year Seminar in the Social Sciences and Natural Sciences

Recorded 2026-09-07
INTER-LS 107 · Fall 2026

How Astronomy Shapes Worldview

Recorded 2026-09-07
Raw records
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Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Model 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
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