Historical instructor

Craig Fischer

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.00/5 from 11 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.

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

What students say

Original student reviews · all captured dates

POLISCI 470
Quality 4/5Difficulty 3/5
Always a plus to have a professor who genuinely cares about what he teaches & goes out of his way to explain the nuance, especially in a topic like constitutional law. Assignments aren't easy, but he makes himself available for questions and cares about your success. Good resource if you want to go into law, too.
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POLISCI 470
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
My favorite professor at UW Madison. For as long as you attend class and ask questions, you'll be fine! I don't understand the negative comments whatsoever. He is very enthusiastic about what he teaches, and it makes lectures all the more enjoyable.
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POLISCI 470
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Amazing professor, brought great energy to every lecture and was always available as a resource for assignments and any law-related questions students would have. By far my favorite professor and course at UW. I don't understand the negative comments below. If you are curious and engaged, you should do fine in the course.
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POLISCI 470
Quality 5/5Difficulty 2/5
Comments below sound like they are salty they are never going to make it as lawyers. Fischer is hands down the most enthusiastic and caring professor at UW. His lectures and slides do a great job of summarizing pretty difficult SCOTUS cases. If you attend lectures and review sessions, you won't have to leave ratings like the people below.
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POLISCI 470
Quality 2/5Difficulty 3/5
I was genuinely excited for this class. But the professor cannot teach. He crushes 5 hour energy drinks before class and you can tell. He cannot explain the material, because he is too busy jumping around and yelling. The grading expectations and assignments were also so confusing.
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POLISCI 470
Quality 1/5Difficulty 4/5
Assignments were poorly structured. Expectations were vague. Constantly felt like I was being evaluated on criteria that were never made clear. Professor struggled to explain material. Little effort to connect individual cases to overarching precedents. Asking for clarification often led nowhere. Unfortunate, would not recommend.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Craig Fischer

No teaching recorded in Fall 2026.

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Recorded teaching history

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Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.

Instructor identity & provenance
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