HIST 1A
Introduction to Western Civilization: Ancient Civilizations, Prehistory to circa AD 843
Grades
3.38
Average grade awarded in HIST 1A. Not a student rating: this is what the grades were.
In the A range
60%
of the 622 letter grades
D, F or W
4.3%
of every letter grade awarded, plus withdrawals
Taken pass/no pass
6%
88% of those passed
The registrar's own records: 622 grades over 8 terms, Fall 2021 to Fall 2025. Every instructor is pooled here.
What is inside that record
No summer session is in that record.
The table below splits them, and term averages across those 8 terms ran 3.18 to 3.53.
Historical grades for all professors, across recorded terms. The course summary above includes all professors.
- A+ 39 · 6.3%
- A 195 · 31.4%
- A- 141 · 22.7%
- B+ 78 · 12.5%
- B 67 · 10.8%
- B- 37 · 5.9%
- C+ 12 · 1.9%
- C 16 · 2.6%
- C- 10 · 1.6%
- D+ 2 · 0.3%
- D 7 · 1.1%
- D- 1 · 0.2%
- F 17 · 2.7%
- P 36 of 681
- NP 5 of 681
- I 18 of 681
Percentages are of the 622 letter grades. Grey bars are non-letter outcomes: passes (P), no-passes (NP), and incompletes (I).
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 | Spring 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PHILLIPS, DAVID DANIEL reviews ↗ | 3.36 | 3.36 | 379 | 4 | 57% | average | not teaching it |
| GOLDBERG, JESSICA LILLIAN reviews ↗ | 3.41 | 3.41 | 243 | 4 | 66% | 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.
What the work looks like
- 2 exams, said by 12 reviewers
- 2 papers, said by 9 reviewers
- 1 project, said by 1 reviewer
Read from 104 reviews about 1 month ago. dibs counts only what a review actually states, so a kind of work nobody mentioned is absent rather than zero.
In Springs
Ran in 2 of the last 4 Springs, so it turns up in Spring sometimes rather than dependably.
From the terms dibs holds, which start in Fall 2021 and exclude summer. A department can run a course in a quarter it never has before.
From the registrar's catalog
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Survey of diverse cultures that shaped foundation of Western civilization to onset of 9th century AD. Investigation of first civilizations in Near East and Egypt. Analysis of worlds of Greeks and Romans. Examination of ways in which western European societies created new syntheses through selective appropriation of Greek and Roman cultures and introduction of new cultural forms. P/NP or letter grading.
Sections in Spring 2026
From the people who took it
Student reviews
What taking HIST 1A was like: the work, the teaching, and what students wish they’d known.
Your experience could be the first.
No student reviews are available to read on dibs for this course yet. Took it? Tell the next person what helped, what was hard, and how you spent your time.
Looking for more perspectives?
External reviews are separate and do not count toward the dibs rating.