Was I being singled out/picked on, or otherwise complimented?

Why not ask him? Otherwise your imagination may run away with you.

True, but it will have to wait until next week (once a week class)...then I may feel silly asking about it by then.

Don’t be silly about being silly.It’s a reasonable question if you don’t give it too much weight.

What was the subject matter and how did you think it went?

Computer programming, and my presentation went really well. Or, at least I did really well on my program. I was a bit nervous talking in front of everyone…but it went okay I think…

Maybe they thought you would do well and would push people to do better. That would be a compliment.

Or they thought you would bomb and would ease the nerves of everyone else since it would be hard for them to do worse.

I would wait for your score before looking into motive.

Oh, I know I did well…and my program was way more complex and entertaining than anybody else’s. Most people did the bare minimum requirements of the assignment, whereas I really tried to make mine look realistic.

I agree with @johnpowell. He probably wanted to show how easy it was for you to do so it would be comfortable for the others.

Oops! Well, I got a little bit tongue tied. And the next guy got up and apologized that his was nothing as intricate as mine…which embarrassed me a little…

I was in a writing 122 (style and argument) class. One day the professor wanted to read three papers in front of class. We had turned them in the previous class. He started with mine. In class I blurted out if I was a example of what not to do.

Everyone laughed. He actually liked the paper since it was about something he had never heard about. I wrote about Canada taxing blank CD’s and hard drives and, iPods to give a cut to Celine Dion.

The guy who went after me and said the above meant it as a compliment I think, @johnpowell…but it was still a little embarrassing, as I am not used to being the center of attention…

Someone’s got to go first, I wouldn’t read too much into it.

When I taught classes, I would most often point out the first student and then allow the rest to follow. The first step always seemed the hardest step for the group of students.

I would choose more or less random, but would choose one that I felt would do OK.

In Dutch we say… When one sheep has crossed the dam, more will follow. :-)

I think it was a compliment. Teachers notice a lot about their students as they work and you probably seemed competent and had an interesting project going on. You proved him correct. Don’t bring it up to the teacher. Just take it for what it was worth. @whitenoise has a good comment.

I don’t know but I would say not weird and not you either being picked on or complimented either, necessarily. If no order of presenters was previously established, then your professor had to start with someone and that someone was you. There very well might be a reason why he started with you, I don’t know. Similar things happened to me, when I was high school, college and grad school. I never liked having to go first because I usually wasn’t as prepared as I should have been, but all I ever felt was that I had simply lost the lottery. I never took it personally, but that’s just me. Maybe I should have thought to take it personally in some way, but I never did.

I agree with @johnpowell and @chyna. It was probably a compliment. You are probably one of his star students. He knew you would do well, could be counted on to have finished the assignment, and could set the tone for the others. I used to teach a college course, and I tended to do the same thing. If it’s a large class, you probably couldn’t go through all the presentations in a single session. Good presentations don’t require as much commentary or corrections. It will be obvious to all that they’re good, and you can go through more of them the first hour.

Thanks, @2davidc8. There are only about twenty people in the class, so we did actually make it all the way through the presentations. I will say that mine was far and away the most intricate of the programs. I am not necessarily his star student…I just seem to be the only one who cared about going above and beyond the expected minimum requirements…

@lillycoyote…it wasn’t so much that he picked me to go first. When he did, I assumed that we were going in alphabetical order…but then what struck me as weird was that he let people volunteer to go after he had me go first. It was the inconsistency of the process that got me thinking…

Thanks, @Sunny2…I hope you and everyone is correct on this…I just didn’t think that my work had made such an impression on him as to be all that…

I like that, @whitenoise…...thanks

@yankeetooter Well, “going above and beyond” the bare minimum (aka in the business world as “exceeding expectations”), completing the assignment on time, and doing a good job is the very definition of a star student in my book. Keep it up and you will find success in ANY endeavor.

@2davidc8…I just don’t get that. I simply cannot comprehend why people don’t want to make an effort any more, why everyone is content to do the least amount of work possible…and I have to wonder what impact that will have on our society. (Sorry…I wax philosophical…)

Smile gracioiusly and say “Thank you,” and take your bows. Learning how to accept a compliment is not so hard and will spare you a lot of dithering and unproductive brooding.

@gailcalled…I think you misunderstand me…I understand and appreciate the compliment paid me by @2davidc8. What I don’t understand is the lack of desire to do their best in those people we were speaking of…

@yankeetooter I don’t really know what was going on. Someone had to go first, and that someone was you, but as to allowing everyone to volunteer after that, I don’t know. He could have set up a particular order, like alphabetical order, or just picked you off one by one, and that last one, I think would have seemed personal. Professors are sometimes capricious. Or maybe he didn’t put all that much thought into it, or maybe he wanted to see if you were up to it or maybe he thought you would fail. I have no idea. Someone had to go first. I just don’t know; still, I’m not sure I would make too much of it in the. That kind of thing, I will say “over analyzing,” I think, will make you crazy; in school and in life. Unless you intend to walk up to your professor and ask him, right to his face, if there was some reason he picked you to go first, then it’s all speculation. “Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy” as Jackson Browne said.

@lillycoyote: @yankeetooter‘s been here for over a year. Notice her lurve.

@gailcalled Yeah, I, I know, I realized that, if you are referring to my welcome message. I edited almost immediately. I’m suffering from a little brain flu, it seems, tonight.

@lillycoyote…there is no way he could have thought I would fail. Except for a 94 on my midterm. And a 90 on another quiz, I have gotten hundreds on every assignment…so why would he think that?

@yankeetooter I just don’t know. All you can do, if you want to really know what was going on in the mind of your professor, as to why he picked you first, is to ask him, outright. And I’m not sure that is really a very good idea. But otherwise it’s all speculation, I think. No one knows the real answer except him. I don’t know what else to say.