Fall 2026

American Society: How It Really Works

SOC 125 explains US performance in realizing freedom, fairness, and democracy through topics like capitalism, inequality, and politics.

offering recorded3–4 credits
Recorded instructors · Fall 2026 Joseph Conti

Summary

1 / 6

Historical reviews of Erik Wright, Joel Rogers: Workload includes significant reading, a midterm, a final, and a paper. Some reviewers found the class easy if they read the book, while others reported hard tests with little curve and confusing lectures.

Grade history

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

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
SOC 125

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Fall 2026

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.84 GPA, 94.7% A/AB (n=19 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.75 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=20 letter grades); Fall 2025: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=18 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Historical reviews for Joel Rogers and Erik Wright describe a course heavy in reading and basic economics/politics. Wright's lectures are polarizing, with some finding them boring or biased. Rogers' lectures are seen as long and confusing, though some find the course easy if the book is read.

ERIK WRIGHT is recorded teaching in Fall 2006, Fall 2010, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2017, Spring 2018. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

JOEL ROGERS is recorded teaching in Fall 2006, Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, 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.

JOSEPH CONTI is recorded teaching in Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, 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
LEC 001Classroom Instruction20 / 180

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

Historical reviews for Joel Rogers and Erik Wright describe a course heavy on reading and civics topics, with mixed opinions on lecture engagement and political bias. TAs like Shamus Khan and Peter Brinson are frequently praised for clarity and passion.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.64 GPA, 80.0% A/AB (n=55 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.33 GPA, 61.5% A/AB (n=65 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.65 GPA, 84.6% A/AB (n=39 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Historical reviews of Erik Wright, Joel Rogers: Workload includes significant reading, a midterm, a final, and a paper. Some reviewers found the class easy if they read the book, while others reported hard tests with little curve and confusing lectures.

Historical reviews of Erik Wright, Joel Rogers, Shamus Khan: Students report that TAs often provide better explanations than lectures. Experiences range from finding the class interesting and helpful to describing lectures as boring, long, or a complete waste of time.

Topics

  • Markets, capitalism, and democratic systems
  • Class, race, and gender inequalities
  • Militarism and US international role
  • US electoral politics, media, and social mobilization

Grades

Historical instructor

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 · 0.25 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 · 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

1320 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
SOC 125 · Fall 2026

American Society: How It Really Works

Recorded 2026-09-07
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20260907T155543-ce3781c4",
    "semester": "1272",
    "observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1272:900:017528",
    "course_id": "SOC 125",
    "course_uid": "course_0be5a695ca3454e263bbc0de",
    "term_id": "1272",
    "source_course_id": "017528",
    "source_subject_id": "900",
    "title": "American Society: How It Really Works",
    "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
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-09-07

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4",
  "model_revision": "1355db6a052410cfd62085d94b58866fd0f2c3c5",
  "task_version": "14",
  "output_id": "40c8b26071f8f4bdd6e63a349e7edcb5b0f347871dc181734665ec7e0cb1c592",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "e243353dcb7d79b7247ced91d69443ef4c2a6349",
  "observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00"
}