Dressing dumb

They say that you only get one chance to make a first impression, so it may have been unwise for a young frat-boy to plop down in the back row and prop his feet on the back of the chair in front of him, proudly displaying a shirt that bore the immortal words of a Pink Floyd song, “We Don’t Need No Education.”

Yet another young woman sat herself in the front row, just inches away from the instructor, and proceeded to pick at imaginary insects on her forearms, delicately dropping each invisible bug to the floor, one by one, through the entire 50 minutes of class.

As it happens, that instructor was me, and I would later learn that the obsessive habit of grooming oneself to eliminate bugs that aren’t there is an activity often associated with frequent methamphetamine use. But whatever might have created the compulsion in that front-row vermin picker, it was inordinately distracting, and that distraction grew as the semester wore on until there were days when I had to restrain myself from shouting, “Stop with the picking, already!”

Teachers, if they’re much good at all, will fight to fend off impressions that might prejudice them against a student. But teachers are also human. And you should be prepared to pay the consequences for the tone you set with your appearance.

Speaking for myself only, I’m so damn sick of baseball caps worn backwards that I could spit. For a couple of decades, there were at least four or five guys who wore them to every single class I taught. What those caps said to me about the young men who wore them was this:

“I am a hopeless conformist, and I’m not terribly bright. I wear my cap backwards because that was the fashion I inherited, and just who am I to question it?”

Over those decades of meeting many students who wore their caps backward, a few of those guys overcame my initial poor judgment and showed themselves to be as intelligent and as sensitive as any students I ever had. But more than a few lived up to the stereotype they were setting up for themselves.

In any case, though it’s an old-fashioned thought, the idea of wearing a cap or a hat indoors still carries, for some teachers, an air of disrespect for the enterprise you are engaging in with them. It’s probably best to err on the side of caution and attend that first day of class bareheaded.

And it’s probably also a good idea to avoid wearing clothing bearing a blatant vulgarity of any sort. Sure, I know; it’s a free country. But since you don’t know the taste or the temperament of the three or four teachers you’re going to be meeting on this first day of class, it might be best not to run the risk of setting up a negative image of yourself in their minds.

Over the long haul, it could affect your grade if, for instance, you end up on one of those narrow divides between a B- and a C+. Though your instructor may never realize why it happened, that T-shirt you wore on day one might have nudged you over into C territory. Was that “I’m Hot and I’m Horny” shirt really worth a whole damn letter grade?

Though I’m an old guy now, I haven’t forgotten that their profs are often the last people students are thinking about impressing on the first day of class. Students want to style themselves in a way that will earn positive recognition from their peers.

That’s why so many instructors find their focus distracted by young women in low-cut blouses and midriff-baring shorts. The Britney and Mariah Carey bimbo look was big during my last few years as a teacher, and though it produced some eye-pleasing spectacles, it’s doubtful that very many teachers were inclined to take the young women who affected the bimbo look more seriously as students or budding intellects.

I suspect there are somewhat more experienced students who might read this and think, “Oh yeah, well, what about the way the profs dress for class?”

I taught with guys who wore flip-flops, baggy shorts and T-shirts, affecting a hip-hop look well into their early 50s in pathetic attempts to identify with their young charges. And I knew other teachers who hadn’t gotten the memo that the 60s ended nearly a half century ago.

But here’s a lesson that will apply long after you’ve left college:

The instructors who present themselves like genteel bohemians, or take on the look of someone recently homeless do not depend upon you for a grade or a paycheck.

You, on the other hand, are engaged in the great American pursuit of a GPA, and that slob at the podium has it in his or her power to make your pursuit more difficult.

Is it fair? Nope.

Is it real? Yep.

That’s lesson one from day one.