Lindsey Tries: Picking a Seat

The following originally appeared in University of Wisconsin - Stout's student newspaper, Stoutonia. 

["Lindsey Tries” documents the thought process of a 22-year-old transfer student who spent more time choosing her seats in class this semester than she did choosing her entire class schedule.]

With the start of every semester, I am mainly worried about two things: one, are my professors nice, and two, where am I going to sit? For the first day of classes, it seems as if everyone shows up 25 minutes early, which means I need to show up 26 minutes early if I want any hope of what I consider to be a “good seat.”

Since I basically have the eyes of a sixty-year-old man, I generally need a seat towards the front of the classroom. I wear contacts, but still squint a lot (I’ve been to the eye doctor, and they repeatedly say I don’t need stronger contacts and my eyes are fine. I really think they’re the ones that need new contacts, because I know from their giggles the Q, A, S, and T I just read off were not even close).

I’ve also heard the first two rows do statistically better in class (I have no idea if this is true, but finding out that it’s false now would be like my mom saying “Just kidding! Vegetables aren’t healthy. We just fed them to you all these years because your facial expressions while eating them are hilarious,” so I still follow it). I know from popular culture that the first row is for nerds, though, so I aim for the second row. I still get those possible-statistical-benefits, without the stigma of being a nerd.

I also have to consider whether there are any cute guys in the class, because cute guys can be a trump card in the seat-choosing lottery. Yes, I’m here to get a BFA, but if I can get an MRS degree while I’m at it, why not? Cute guys generally sit in the back of the room, though, so this rarely happens.

Now within that second row, I try to sit by whoever looks the coolest. They may think I’m weird at the beginning of the semester, but I hope they’ll eventually learn to love my vast facial expressions and weird sense of humor, and we’ll be BFFs in no time. I’m basically aiming for some sort of friendship-style Stockholm Syndrome.

So far, I’ve gotten mixed results. But it’s still pretty early in the semester.