MSC IND 55
Legends of Songwriting: Their Life in Music
Grades
3.81
Average grade awarded in MSC IND 55. Not a student rating: this is what the grades were.
In the A range
90%
of the 123 letter grades
D, F or W
2.4%
of every letter grade awarded, plus withdrawals
Taken pass/no pass
4%
5 of 5 students passed
The registrar's own records: 123 grades over 4 terms, Fall 2021 to Fall 2025. Every instructor is pooled here.
What is inside that record
Every one of those terms is a summer session, and summer sessions are counted here.
The table below splits them, and term averages across those 4 terms ran 3.66 to 3.90.
Historical grades for all professors, across recorded terms. The course summary above includes all professors.
- A+ 87 · 70.7%
- A 21 · 17.1%
- A- 3 · 2.4%
- B+ 3 · 2.4%
- B 3 · 2.4%
- B- 1 · 0.8%
- C 2 · 1.6%
- F 3 · 2.4%
- P 5 of 128
Percentages are of the 123 letter grades. Grey bars are non-letter outcomes: passes (P).
How the non-letter outcomes are counted
They are excluded from the GPA entirely rather than scored, because counting a P as a 4.0 would be a fabrication.
By instructor
| Instructor | Predicted GPA | Raw | n | Terms | A range | Workload | Winter 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LEAF, DAVID A reviews ↗ | 3.81 | 3.81 | 123 | 4 | 90% | average | not teaching it |
Why Predicted is not the Raw average
“Predicted” is shrunk toward the course average, which is itself shrunk toward the department, so an instructor with a handful of students sits near the course mean rather than topping the list.
Grade records describe outcomes. For what a course is like to take, read student reviews written on dibs below or follow the separate external review link.
Workload and assignments
Work types reported in BruinWalk reviews of this course, across recorded instructors and terms. They may differ from this term's syllabus.
dibs has read this course’s reviews and none of them say what kind of work it sets, so dibs has nothing to show rather than a guess. Read from 6 reviews about 1 month ago. That is the reviewers being silent, and not a course that sets no work.
From the registrar's catalog
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. With special focus on songwriting renaissance of rock era, examination of work of important songwriters of post-World War II generation (circa 1952-1994) and those they have influenced. Practical industry guidance from current and noteworthy practitioners. Coverage of songwriting, arrangement and record production, music publishing, and record business in 20th and 21st centuries. Guest music industry professionals demonstrate individual creative processes and discuss their paths to songwriting and their place in world of music. Course is not workshop or tutorial on how to write songs. (See course 112.) P/NP or letter grading.
Sections in Winter 2026
From the people who took it
Student reviews
What taking MSC IND 55 was like: the work, the teaching, and what students wish they’d known.
Your experience could be the first.
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