Spring 2027

Introduction to Public Policy

Introduction to public policy covering major issues in economic management, welfare, education, health, energy, and environment, plus constitutional provisions and policy-making approaches.

offering recorded3–4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.86 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=117 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.69 GPA, 91.9% A/AB (n=135 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.83 GPA, 94.7% A/AB (n=75 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Understand the provisions of the United States Constitution most related to the development and execution of public policy in the United States.

  • Understand the difference between federalism and the allocation of authorities between state, county, and municipal governments.

  • Learn to define and frame problems as an essential first step in the development of public policy.

  • Learn to develop, analyze, and advocate policy alternatives.

  • Learn how to write a policy memo.

  • Learn about executive, administrative, legislative, judicial, and other governmental authorities and their respective roles in making public policy.

  • Understand the role of politics in policy development.

  • Learn various approaches to policy analysis.

  • Learn about various tools and functions available to public policy-makers.

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

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
POLISCI 272

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • Sophomore standing

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

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 / 700

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

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.86 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=117 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.69 GPA, 91.9% A/AB (n=135 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.83 GPA, 94.7% A/AB (n=75 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Economic management, welfare, education, health, energy, and environment.
  • Federalism and allocation of authorities among state, county, and municipal governments.
  • Executive, administrative, legislative, judicial, and other governmental authorities in public policy.

Skills

  • Developing, analyzing, and advocating policy alternatives using various approaches to policy analysis.
  • Writing policy memos.
  • Defining and framing public policy problems.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— 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 Fall 2025

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
POLISCI 272 · Spring 2027

Introduction to Public Policy

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": "1274:778:015876",
    "course_id": "POLISCI 272",
    "course_uid": "course_2a9baf8130df5daa40b00a20",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "015876",
    "source_subject_id": "778",
    "title": "Introduction to Public Policy",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring, Summer"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews

No records available.

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": "a024a19b953b63d3cb0acb50126d098cf8247d367b604c2d6b84eedcbbc7b21f",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}