Mission Brown-Nose: Starting now.

[lexylit]

i don't know if you can get away with this if you're not an english major, but i always asked questions and participated in class even if it was a lecture class with 100 people. and i sat in the front row. sounds awful (you all hate me now) but i never went to office hours, the profs all knew me, and i got great grad school recs. but when you make a point in a lecture class that's NOT a discussion class, it can't be lame and usually has to be brilliant.

[dr_draino]

Yeah, sitting in the front row is very good.  I used to hate these students when I was a student.  Now that I'm on the other side, I love these students.

[dr_draino]

If you're gonna sit front and center, make damn sure you get there early every day, though...and make sure you're not gonna slack off half-way through the semester.  It's a commitment being the brown noser, right Lexy?

[lexylit]

<lexy tries counting the number of times she's been called that and runs out of fingers/toes>

actually in a big lecture hall the front row usually stays empty

we had a prof at stanford (smartest man alive and best lecturer ever) and when you said something truly wonderful he would stop and ponder it and then go, NNNEEEAAATTT! in his sexy italian accent.

it made your YEAR to have him say "neat." everyone was jealous and you walked around smiling all day. all his students worked so hard just to earn that but few did.

[dr_draino]

I'm just sayin' you don't wanna walk in 2 minutes into the lecture and noisily make your way to the front of the hall...

...and if you start off the semester showing up early every day and slowly taper to one or two days a week on time and early and the other day sneaking in to the back 5 minutes late or not showing.  The front-rower-regulars are noticed much more when they don't show.

actually in a big lecture hall the front row usually stays empty

[lexylit]

oh this is true.

also, hypothetically, when you're pledging a greek house and often find yourself made to wear butterfly wings, fake mustaches, or stolen fratboy paraphernalia, sitting in front row of 150-person shakespeare class can throw esteemed prof for a loop

he might even see your groucho-marx-gear, laugh, cough, lose his place in his lecture about who is the REAL merchant in "the merchant of venice," and have to excuse himself to regroup

[lazybum]

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