Reviews of professor Andrew Coates

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
Dr. Coates manages to make our class stress free while maintaining engagement. The religion in American life class is hands down the coolest courses. We watch his lectures and complete readings, then discuss once a week. Two papers and some smaller writing assignments (max 1 page). The material is truly interesting and applies to daily life.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
Dr. Coates is kind, funny, and refreshingly in tune with the most pressing issues today. He wove in topics of class, race, gender, and more into discussions of film & religion. It was this multi-dsiciplinary view of religion & film that made the class so fun & applicable to our everyday lives. Most people got an A-/A, so grading is more than fair.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
Easy but interesting. Most lectures were a brief discussion of the homework followed by watching some kind of film. Each unit starts with a movie screening (watching a whole movie over two days). Graded on participation, unit quizzes, three short essays, and a final project - grading can be tough but TAs are helpful.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
Dr. Coates is a really nice guy who tries to make his students enjoy learning about religion and history, something he is clearly passionate about. Daily readings but not completely mandatory, but papers are based off of them. Only a few easy assignments and no final. Grading seemed a little inconsistent but gives feedback and welcomes questions.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 1.0/5
Religion and film is an amazing and insightful class. Professor Coates is a great professor who is reasonable with his workload. He has clear expectations, but he is more than open to modifying the syllabus or any assignments. He also understands when his students just aren't getting it or when the material doesn't connect. AMAZING!

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
take this course!! There's no textbook so the homeworks are watching videos he makes himself that are really interestingduring class you have a discussion while he goes over some slides. He's super engaging. I wouldn't say it's an "easy A" but if you put in work for the writing assignments (which are super short btw), then an A is totally possible

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Class was not about religion. Racialized topics that had little/nothing to do with race during each class discussion. One of my least favorite class experiences so far at Duke.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
This class is the perfect mix between a course on religion and one where you can watch legendary (or unfamiliar) movies and dissect them in an educational context. Grading is only dependent on 5 assignments really and grading is a bit tougher than expected by TAs. If you can get in a Coates class you should!