By far the greatest class I've taken. Great professor with a lot of very interesting stories. Very worthwhile.

Coan was enjoyable, but I wasn't completely sold on the class. Anecdotes from his personal life were always enjoyable to listen to, but the actual material was somewhat dry and formulaic--learn about the disorder, identify symptoms, learn about causes, etc. and then you do that for every disorder. His tests get very specific.

Like the other poster from Fall 2010 said, I expected to be blown away by this class, but those expectations were overly high. However, I won't go as far as to say it was 'mediocre'- in fact, it was very interesting and mostly enjoyable. Some days are less bearable than the others (usually when there's a lengthy, wordy powerpoint to go through). The specific format of going through each type of disorder gets old and predictable, but it's really the only way to go about it. His stories are great at breaking up sometimes-dry lectures and he clearly has a ton of experience. Coan does well to get opinions of students in (usually successful) attempts to start a discussion about the topic, which is commendable for a large lecture-style class. I can imagine working in his lab would be a blast, even if it's very serious research that's being done. Definitely an easygoing dude who cares about teaching as much as research

Prof. Coan's a nice guy who loves laughing at himself, but the material itself is kind of dry, and he tends to read off the slides. I was a little disappointed because the previous reviews made this class sound like a must-take, but I honestly found it mediocre.

James Coan is the MAN. He's hilarious, albeit awkward when you first meet him. He also really knows his stuff and made almost every lecture enjoyable, whether it was through an article, some NPR, or YouTube. I loved his class, and I would tell anyone who had a chance to take it to do so.

Really great and interesting class. Professor Coan makes the topic easy to understand and if you do the reading you will do fine on the exams. Definitely recommend to all students, psych majors or not!

great class

Professor Coan is the best! He makes you want to come to the lectures. Keep up with the reading and pay attention in class and you’ll be fine.

This class was one of the most interesting and worthwhile classes I've taken at UVA. You'll find yourself diagnosing your friends

If you keep up with your reading and attend lecture, this class should be very easy! Coan is a great professor--very energetic. You can tell that he truly enjoys what he's teaching. Definitely a class worth taking!