Cold calling is the process of approaching prospective customers or clients, typically via telephone, who were not expecting such an interaction. The word "cold" is used because the person receiving the call is not expecting a call or has not specifically asked to be contacted by a sales person.
However, in the sense of class participation, cold calling is when the professor calls on someone who doesn't have their hand up with absolutely no warning. I have experienced several instances of "slightly chilled calling" when there were several seconds of intense eye contact before the professor actually called on me. Fortunately, in those cases, there was no original thought required. We had just finished small in class group discussions and merely regurgitated our results.
Yesterday, during the very first System Optimization class, the professor was working through the very first example. The problem had been defined, and he was now ready to start showing us the work. I suddenly had to scratch my head, not because I was puzzled, but because I had an itch. The professor whipped around, noticed that I was scratching my head and immediately called on me to tell him how to do the work because, and I quote, "Brad, can you answer this because you are scratching your head". Vertigo set in, my heart raced, did he really just call on me? I was only scratching my head. Luckily, I had been paying close attention (because I ALWAY play close attention to the professor as I sit in Probability class writing this) and was able to successfully answer the question.
One of my goals for the next two years is to learn how to think on my feet better. According to the book The Alchemist "the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true". I guess the universe is conspiring through my professor. Let the adventure continue.
