Where Do YOU Sit?

I came across this cute little interactive illustration today that explains what your choice of seating in a classroom says about your personality and/or learning style. Maybe "came across" is too loose of a term. More like...I searched the question "What your seating choice in class says about your personality" and then clicked on the most promising link. What, you might ask, prompted me to do this? Who even thinks about these things?!

Once I realized that I sit in more or less the same area in every single class, I began to wonder if this says something about me. I ALWAYS sit in the back row, corner seat if I get lucky. If I'm not early to class and the back row is taken, I bolt for a seat on the side. If no back row or side seats are available, I have a mini panic attack. For this reason, I like to arrive 10 minutes (ish) early so that I can get a seat I'm comfortable with.

Why is this so important? Well, I don't like thinking that people are looking at me, which eliminates the front row and the middle seats. I don't like being surrounded by people, which definitely eliminates the middle seats. I don't even particularly like being in the middle of the back row. Give me a corner or a side and I'm a very happy student.

It turns out that there is a bit of psychology to this! Click on this link to see what I'm talking about. The description of my side seat fits me almost perfectly, I think (except for the 'best note-taker in the class part, haha).
The Reserved Learner: "Sitting on the side gives you a feeling of privacy, and you like it like that. In class, you are probably quiet and reserved but that doesn't mean that you're not into learning. You typically collect your information from the contributions of others, even though you would have said the same thing had you raised your hand. Your preference is observation, rather than participation and you're probably one of the best note-takers in the class."

All throughout college, whenever we didn't have to have assigned seating charts, I chose the same location in which to sit. Without fail. Although, now that I reflect on it more, there is one glaring exception: Spain. Last semester, we had (almost) every class in the same classroom. We became very comfortable with it, knew which seats were closest to the outlets, which had best wi-fi, which tables didn't squeak as much as the others, etc. Once we got past Interim and got into the actual semester-long classes, I realized that I was much more comfortable with moving around in my seating choice. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the fact that the seating consisted of long tables with chairs instead of single seater desks, but I know that familiarity with my classmates certainly played a huge role in my willingness to break out of my habitual seating preference. During a semester of very uncomfortable situations, finding a seat in class turned out to not be one of them, for a change.

Hopefully you found this marginally interesting. If not, I apologize for wasting your time. This is just what happened to be on my mind tonight. :)