Greeting professors

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I am attending a small college where occasionally the professors are walking around in the halls with other students. Today a professor who I knew from a class greeted me as I was walking down the sidewalk past him. He said, "Hello, Matthew." It is a nice thing for a professor to know you by name. "Hello. I am doing fine," I replied, giving eye contact and a slight smile. Then I kept walking towards the cafeteria.

But should I have replied with his name and title? That would have indicated much more respect for his position on my part, and might have helped in the graduate studies department (research jobs). especially if he alread knows who i am.

Is there a general rule I should follow in this cirumstance, or am I just making particulars out of something that is no big deal (yet again)?

excellent.
you did well with what you have allready done
and you are doing better to ask for more help...this shows a great deal of self awareness.
when you are asking an academic question..then use the title and name...
but for an informal greeting as you descibed..what you did was excellent...friendly but not to familiar.....
i would never call a proff by their first name alone even when in a social situation i would short to "proff"
but this is familiar as i would get...even when on holidays the president of the iunited states gets called mr president by his friends and staff.

You managed that well, I think I would've muttered something inaudibly under my breath.

I call my profs "sir" (well, that's what I call the English teacher; the rest are all women and I call them "profesora").

I never call anyone by their name. This has to do with poor memory and the fact that I rarely ever look at people's faces.

If I want someone's attention, I'll usually just walk up to them.

It really just depends on which kind of prof you have. For example, my English prof asked us all to call her by her first name. For my other profs, I just call them Dr. and then their last initial (I have a hard time remembering names). In fact, this is one thing they asked us to do.

I think you did fine. You gave a polite response.

I think that saying, "hello Sir," or using his name (whatever he's asked you to call him in class) would also have been polite and respectful.

my school is much more casual. we always call our professors 'teachers" and address them by their first name, even if we've never met them.

anyway, pay attention to how other address the professors. If he/she says hello your name to you, say hello their name to them. then you can :how are you? good. how are you? good. well, seeya!

i think that's basically what people expect. but you might not want to say "i am doing fine' unless they ask you. its like a problem i have, i say thank you even if someone's statment isn't a compliment.

I think you did ok, but maybe preemptively went into another area of conversation, which is something I do sometimes too. You can also say, "Hello [insert name here]." As for professors, it's generally more acceptable to say their first name in college/university, but in high school I think the standard is "Mr.", "Ms." or "Mrs." followed by their last name. On the first day of class they usually state their preference and I write a note to myself so I know for future reference. I look at this note from time to time so when I am in conversation and nervous, I am less likely to forget (my mind "goes blank" sometimes when I get nervous).

I hardly ever say names, it makes me uncomfortable for some reason. I would have likely muttered, "Hi," under my breath and quickly walked away if someone said hello to me, but I am trying to make an effort to say names now and not be so meek.

Thanks for your replies. Goomba I just noticed your reply.

Yeah, I do that as well...and that is a key thing I try to avoid.

Of course, It's easier to do that with smalltalk though and open-ended disucssions.

Talking about technical problems, there's the stuff at hand and that's what you're talking about and for me it's not easy to veer off track there.