"Yeah, they're sort of the alpha couple around here."

Walk walk walk.

...he will not mention the thing Lydia said about Jackson's sexuality even though it conflicts with what Danny said about Jackson's sexuality. Therein lies madness.

"Guess I'm getting to meet all the popular people today."

"Well, it helps that Lydia decides who's popular around here. If it were up to me, lacrosse wouldn't be the most popular sport here, but Lydia basically arranged it."

They arrive.

"Good luck, you'll probably need it."

Ade decides not to comment on the circularity of that explanation.

"Thanks."

"That one's Jackson, in case you're really itching to win popular kid bingo." 

He points to a student leaning back in his chair. 

It's vaguely provocative, in a distinctly unappealing way. 

"I'm not itching, no, but I am pretty curious."

He doesn't, actually, have a lot of experience liking the popular kids, but he figures, hey, why not.

Well, it is the fourth of the day. Maybe the ones around here aren't so bad?

The seat next to him is open.

Maybe so!

He plops down onto that seat. "'Lo."

"Hi. Are you lost?"

"No, I'm new. Adedayo, but Ade's fine."

"Ade. So why are you taking psychology?"

"I like people, like understanding how they work, like economics-especially-behavioral, like to have a rounded understanding of things, seemed like it made sense. How about you?"

"Mostly the same. I'm taking econ too. Regular econ, since my friend is in it. I'll take the AP test anyway, easy to get books to learn from." 

"Your friend being Danny or someone else?"

"Danny. You've met him already? You work fast." 

"He was the one who showed me around to classes and stuff, and he mentioned being your friend, yeah."

"I hope he didn't say anything too scandalous." 

"I don't think he said anything that could be reasonably described as that, no."

The teacher enters, and Jackson takes out his notebook.

"Nice to meet you, Ade." 

The lecture begins.

Here's how experiments work, and why psychology doesn't have any. 

Uh.

Observational studies, quasi-experiments...like in economics, there is little use of random assignment; usually, it's somewhere between unethical or impossible. 

The teacher goes on to distinguish the grouping variable of the quasi-experiment from independent variables. 

Here, Ade will be manipulating one variable and studying its effects on another. He is the one who will assign treatments to groups, not random chance.

Also, here is some examples of unethical experiments. Prison guards, huh? Wow. 

...right, okay, that's not totally unreasonable, as long as you take it all into account in your statistics, sure.

It is pretty interesting, anyway.

Beyond making it clear that they will be looking at non-random assignment, the class focuses mostly on the different sub-disciplines of psychology. General, introductory stuff, unlikely relevant to later material. 

Jackson decides this means they can talk. 

"What do you think of us? Beacon Hills."

"Nice place. I've only just arrived so I don't have a very informed opinion, but people seem nice, and I'm not very used to the popular kids liking me even after I mention the genderfluidity." Or that much sexual diversity among them, he doesn't say.