Evan, no matter where I sit in my biology class, I get surrounded by meat headed guys who want to hit on me. They know I like the class so they always try to answer questions to impress me. The professor gets fed up quickly and ends up ignoring my quadrant of the room most of the time. I want a good participation grade. What do I do?

Could you stop being so attractive?

It sounds like you have that classic “cute scientist” thing going on and they’re into that.

You shouldn’t have to stand for being ignored by your professor because of who sits next to you. If you like the class and genuinely want to participate, you should be able to.

Use that good old, scientific bluntness of yours to shoo these toolboxes back into shop class. Once they get the heck away from you, you can get back to killing it making the valid points that you know so well.

First, let’s make some conversation with these fellows. Bring up some new microbiological research you just read about and ask what they think about it. It should be pretty pleasant watching these guys try to decide how they feel about isolated nucleotides or altered processes in irradiated tissues. This should drive it home pretty quick that the intellectual gap here is pretty wide. Once they realize they don’t have a chance with you, they’ll probably congregate around another good-looking lady in the class and you’ll be free to rack up those participation points.

If they remain insistent and your professor continues to ignore you, then you need to speak to your professor directly.

He needs to call on you when you have something to say, and he deserves criticism if he keeps lumping you in with the people who sit near you.

Put him in your shoes and remind him of his entry level classes when he was in college. Ask him how he would feel if his professors lumped him in with his less engaged fellow students. This is the time when the truly interested students get to set themselves apart from their apathetic fellows. Don’t let him deprive you of that.

The fact that you care enough to talk to him about it should convince him to call on you when you have something to say. As long as you demonstrate your passion, he can’t ignore it.

ealinko@mavs.coloradomesa.edu