5 Questions to Never Ask College Students

By Eva Vigh

If there really are no stupid questions, there certainly are tactless and insensitive interrogatives best left unasked. While college is all about meeting new people, here are the top five answers you can contemplate in private about your peers.

1. Are you really going to eat that?

This question is often phrased rather timidly, as the asker becomes genuinely concerned over the well-being of his/her roommate. The cause for alarm usually involves tubs of ice cream, entire cakes, and enough sugar to send three small children into diabetic shock. It’s not a pretty sight, but frankly, it may be the only thing preventing a lapse into stress-induced insanity.

If extreme binge eating becomes your roommate’s habit, by all means speak up. However, the occasional, pregnancy-like cravings that coincide right around exam time are perfectly normal and don’t need any guilt inducing criticism.

2. So are you two dating?

Unless if you follow up with an exact definition of the term “dating,” don’t ask this. The unfortunate truth about college relationships is there is no set number of texts or dates that defines when a couple moves beyond “talking” to actually “dating.” Gone are the days when a Facebook update could make a relationship official, because honestly, most people would have their statuses set permanently on “It’s complicated.”

3. Have you started paying off your student loans yet?

Unless you want to ruin someone’s day by reminding them of their financial obligations, ever-increasing debts, and the bleak future of their credit card, don’t ask this either.

4. What’s your major?

The most cliché conversation opener is actually a discreet method of judging a person’s financial and professional future, thereby determining the likelihood of marrying them. Art history? Nope. Philosophy? Move along. Petroleum engineering? So, how many kids do you want?

After answering this question two hundred times the first week of school by peers who will forget your name within five minutes, it gets old real fast. So, whatever you do, don’t let a degree be the first thing you know about someone, and don’t base your opinion on someone off their major.

5. And what are you planning to do with that degree?

If the GRE and MCAT had an offspring, it would probably an essay prompt to this question. This inquiry is almost always a follow up to the initial, “So, what’s your major?” and seems to expect a profound, well thought-out response of a bright future involving a six figure income, a Nobel Prize, and a Kardashian house (though certainly not a Kardashian marriage).
The reality is that most undergraduate students have only vague ideas regarding their career choices. While they know they plan on pursuing an occupation within their field of study, this rarely includes a specific career, and answers amount to little more than, “Well, you know, get a job.”

So the next time you strike up a conversation with the cute guy next to you, remember to not ask these five infamous questions. Instead, ask some slightly less painful and uncomfortable ones, like how much money his father makes or the last time he’s had sex.

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