If I checked out, the professor would know instantly. I was not obscured by rows of students and desks, so I had to pay attention and participate in class. The thing that stood out the most when sitting in front of the classroom was that there was nowhere to hide. I could see the board clear as day, and I could feel the presence of everyone behind me, staring through the back of my head. I only had a single class on Monday, Stunt Journalism, so this was a great way to ease myself into the experiment. “I definitely think that it affects your performance, and my performance is way better when I sit in the front,” Mashliakevich said.ĭay one was the easiest day of the challenge. I talked to Margarita Mashliakevich ’22, who sits in the front row for all of her classes.
To test this theory, I decided to sit in the front row of all my classes for a week straight at the end of last semester.īefore I started this experiment, I wanted to get another student’s opinion. Since I consider myself to be fairly shy, I figured changing where I sit in a classroom would benefit me. The study also found that sitting in the back of the classroom reduces the participation of people who are normally shy. A 2016 study by researchers at the University of Salento concluded that there was a negative impact on a student’s engagement when they sat in the back of the classroom. Studies back up what Allen-Stuck told me. “You’re more likely to make eye contact with the professor, and you’re less likely to be distracted by the people in front of you and what they’re doing,” Allen-Stuck said. So, I reached out to Kim Allen-Stuck, Ph.D., assistant vice president of Student Success and Educational Support, to ask if sitting in the front row in class can improve your performance and participation. I typically stay engaged in that post, but sometimes it’s challenging when I am so far away from the professor.Īs I get closer to graduation this May, I kept wondering if I have been holding myself back all of these years and if it was too late to make a change. For the majority of my academic career, I have sat in the back row of my classes where nobody can see me.
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