Walk in expecting the class to hate you and you’ll find evidence in every yawn.

Expectation works like a collection instrument. Walk in braced for rejection and your attention will pick out every neutral face, every yawn, every silence, filing them as proof, while the ordinary friendly signals go unrecorded. Bracing also changes how you come across, so people respond to the closed version of you and the prediction gets to be right.

Before you go in, name the expectation you are carrying so it stops working invisibly. Then give yourself one thing to look for that is not evidence against you, like who else seems nervous. You do not have to feel confident, only to stop collecting.