How many times do you find yourself passing someone you know on the sidewalk and wondering to yourself, "Should I say hi? Should I just smile at them?" This person could be a friend of a friend, someone you've met a few times while out or maybe someone you've had a few classes with. 

Either way, as you approach that person you've got to make a decision to either act like you don't see them or actually acknowledge them. Whatever you choose to do, it's important to act confident when doing it. If you're going to act like you don't see that person, you've just got to continue walking while looking in any direction other than at that person. Keep in mind that it's possible that the person in qustion could go out of their way to say hi to you. In this case it's best to really act like you didn't see them and didn't just ignore them. 

The most important thing to remember about awkward sidewalk passes is do not under any circumstances stop and chat with this person, taking up the entire sidewalk. It's great that you ran into your friend who you probably saw yesterday but do not ruin my route to class! Nothing annoys me more than when I'm late to class because of people not understanding sidewalk protocol. 

First, this is America; we walk on the right side of the sidewalk. It's not that hard to realize if you're walking on the left side you are going to mess up everything and probably have people constantly running into you. Second, if you're going to walk slow or attempt to text while you're walking, then walk on the far right so people can get past you. Another thing: While it's great that three of your friends are in your next class and you can all walk together, please just walk with two in the front or two in back. Do you really want to constantly run into the shoulders of people walking the opposite direction? 

Also, just in general, you could be completely following normal sidewalk protocol, but if you aren't paying attention there's a chance you could easily find yourself flat on the ground due to a lovely bicyclist. If everyone just followed the normal sidewalk courtesy then life for all of us walking to class would dramatically improve.