Rob McDowell isn’t your typical UVU student: he has long hair, dislikes authority, and likes to make fellow students ‘think’ about things. One of the ways he does this is by sitting in a different seat every time he goes to his Psychology class.
“I just want to make students think, you know?”, McDowell said. “It’s like, think outside the box man. You don’t have to sit in the same seat every class period.”
Though McDowell is proud of his efforts, they haven’t gone over very well in class. Fellow classmate Ashley Mathers expressed her frustration upon seeing McDowell sitting in the seat she usually sits in.
“It was annoying,” she said. “I sit there for a reason. It’s close but not too close. My friends sit right by me. There is nothing wrong with routine. I think Rob is a weirdo.”
“Yeah, not everybody gets it,” McDowell responded. “Some people get upset. But I think that just shows how necessary it is that I keep doing this.”
McDowell says that he got the idea after listening to a Radiohead song, though he doesn’t specify anything other than the fact that it convinced him to challenge the structure in the classroom. He also likes to think that there is irony in his action since it is in a psychology class.
“It really trips people out, and that’s what I like about it. Especially since it’s in psychology class, it’s really fitting.”
