You can be judged based on your religion, ethnicity, gender, wealth, health, sexual orientation, grades and more. The list seems endless.

The judgments you encounter might even become stereotypes.

A couple days ago, an Asian student gave a presentation with a partner to my anthropology class of more than 200 students. His accent was thick and his English wasn’t quite perfect. He was doing the best he could, but he had no idea that everyone watching his presentation was laughing at the misspellings on his slides and his struggle to pronounce the words.

It seemed like when he stepped up to the podium, the air in the lecture hall changed. It was no longer light and friendly — it felt heavy with annoyance and disapproval. I knew as soon as he started presenting that people would laugh, and at one point, I was disgusted to realize I had laughed, too.

I’m willing to bet that most of the students in that room, myself included, hadn’t stopped to understand how hard that presentation must have been for him, or how much he must have struggled with speaking a foreign language in front of a forbidding audience.

I’d have to say the most recent and casual instance of judgment I’ve felt was just days ago. I hustled into my French class, late, with wet, unruly hair that had already begun to curl, no make-up on, and sporting a face that was recovering from a recent bout of unforgiving acne.

I could feel a red blush of embarrassment warm my cheeks, and I immediately cursed myself for not getting out of bed on time that morning. I sensed everyone’s eyes on me, and like it or not, I felt terribly judged.

Silly, right?

Though it’s not as if I’m the only college student to ever rush into class looking horrifyingly disheveled, I couldn’t help but feel complete shame.

Unfortunately, how you look is only one category of the multiple things we unwillingly display for the ever-critical eyes of the masses.

If you’re human, you’ll most likely be battling stereotypes your whole life.

Some people have such a stubborn desire to be right that instead of simply asking you where you come from, how you got that bruise, or why you don’t like sushi, they make assumptions. Someone might quickly assess you and notice that, for example, you’re an average-looking white girl. Nothing wrong with that observation, but for them to conclude your favorite things must be pumpkin spice lattes, iPhones and Ugg boots is unjustified.

It can be more serious than that, too. Stereotypes can turn into discrimination. It’s unnerving to think that before you have a chance to show everyone who you really are, people already are drawing conclusions about you.

But who really is to blame here?

When you’re averting your eyes, feeling absolute contempt for the person you think might be judging you, you don’t realize that you might be casting judgment on them, too. The feeling of exposure is a raw experience, and many of us will become defensive when we feel that someone might be calling us out, directly or not.

In our hurry to defend ourselves from what we think is an attack of harsh judgment by a stranger or even someone we know, the only weapon we think to use is judgment in return.

Rather than placing blame on either party, it’s important to realize there simply wasn’t an effort to forge an understanding or common ground.

In most situations, stopping to think is one of the best things you can do.

It can be the only thing keeping you from saying something you might regret, discriminating against another person or hurting someone else’s feelings.

Sierra Lay is a journalism freshman. Reach her at laysierr@msu.edu.