Questions to Ask a College Professor
Questions to ask a college professor, for undergraduates who are not sure what to ask during office hours once they are through the door, and for students who have been sent to interview one. The 68 questions cover doing well in the course, what to ask a professor before an exam and after a grade, the professor's field and research, and majors, careers and recommendation letters. The fifth group is for getting to know the person behind the lectern. The last is for a student interview with a professor, whether for a class paper, a profile or a career project, and runs from permission to record to the follow-up email.
Want questions from the whole vault instead? Try the random question generator.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
The course
What separates the students who do well in this course from the ones who nearly do?
Why ask it
The answer is usually a habit, not a talent: starting the problem set the day it is posted, writing the argument out in full, showing up in week three instead of week ten. Pick the one you are not doing and start it this week.
I got stuck on this part of the material, and here is how I was thinking about it. Where did I go wrong?
Why ask it
Bring the page with your attempt on it. A professor can find a wrong step in a minute, but has nothing to work with when all you can say is that you are lost. Your own reasoning is what turns a five-minute answer into a real conversation.
If you had six hours a week for this course, how would you spend them?
Why ask it
Swap in the number of hours you really have. A fixed budget forces a ranking, problem sets before reading or the other way round, and an honest professor will say what to drop. If you are told six is not enough, better to hear it in week two.
What is the best way to reach you, and how do you like office hours to work?
Why ask it
One professor answers email within the hour but will only talk about grades in person. Another wants a booked slot, or prefers a quick question right after class. Asking in the first week saves you from guessing wrong all term.
Besides office hours, where should I go for help with this course?
Why ask it
The list is usually longer than students realize: a teaching assistant's hours, a tutoring or writing center, a review session, a study group that meets on Thursdays. Ask which one fits the kind of trouble you are having, since a writing tutor cannot repair a gap in the math.
What background are you assuming we already have?
Why ask it
A course often leans on a prerequisite you took two years ago or placed out of. Say which part is shaky for you, and you are likely to leave with a chapter or a problem set to review instead of spending six weeks quietly confused.
Would an older edition of the textbook work, or do I need the current one?
Why ask it
If homework is assigned by problem number, an old edition with different numbering will cost you points. If the book is background reading, it may be fine. Check too whether the course needs an online access code, which a used copy will not include, and whether the library keeps a copy on reserve.
What do you want us to have done with the reading before class?
Why ask it
Preparing can mean margin notes and two questions to raise, or only knowing the argument well enough to follow the lecture. The gap between those is several hours a week, so ask in the first class or two.
How would you take notes in this class: what is worth writing down, and what is already on the slides?
Why ask it
Some professors test the examples they work on the board and treat the slides as an outline. Others post everything and want you listening. Once you know which kind of room you are in, you can stop transcribing and start following the argument.
How much does speaking up in class matter to you, and what counts as a useful contribution?
Why ask it
Participation is the vaguest line in most grading schemes. One instructor counts raised hands and another counts a good question sent by email, and a quiet student who asks this is often offered a way to take part that does not mean performing in front of ninety people.
Where is the line in this course on working with classmates and on using AI tools?
Why ask it
Rules differ from one instructor to the next, sometimes between two sections of the same course, and the syllabus may give them a single sentence. Ask about the exact thing you want to do: comparing answers with a friend, having a tool tidy your grammar, getting help finding a bug. A reply by email is worth keeping.
How do you recommend working through the difficult readings in this field?
Why ask it
Point to the paragraph that defeated you, so the answer is about a real text. You tend to get a method: read the conclusion first, skip the proofs on a first pass, rebuild the argument on paper in your own words. Try it on next week's reading and say how it went.
The explanation in lecture did not click for me. Is there another way to think about this idea?
Why ask it
Name the idea and the exact point where you lost the thread, or you will get the lecture again, only slower. Many instructors have a second explanation in reserve, a picture or a worked case, and it is often the one that stays with you.
Which part of this course tends to sink people, and when in the term does it arrive?
Why ask it
Most courses have a point where the difficulty steps up, whether that is the first proof, the first long paper or the unit everything after it depends on. Get the week as well as the topic, then look at what your other courses have due around it.
I have fallen behind. What should I catch up on first, and what can I afford to skim?
Why ask it
Redoing every missed week in order is how people stay behind until the final. A professor knows which topics the rest of the term is built on and which were a detour, and will usually say so plainly. Go the week you notice, because the list of things you can skip only gets shorter.
If I have to miss a class, how do you want me to handle it?
Why ask it
The syllabus gives the rule, so ask about the practice: whether to email beforehand, where the notes come from, whether a missed quiz can be made up. Do not ask whether you will miss anything important. Professors hear that one every term, and it never lands well.
Exams and grades
How should I study for your exams: what kind of practice matches the way you test?
Why ask it
Rereading notes feels like studying and matches very few exams. Listen for the verb in the answer: if the test has you solve unfamiliar problems, compare two readings or define terms, your practice should do the same thing. This is the fair version of asking what is on the test, and professors answer it far more freely.
How much of the exam comes from lecture, and how much from the reading?
Why ask it
You are asking for a rough split, not a list of topics, and that is easy for a professor to give. If anything in the assigned chapters is fair game, start the reading you skipped before the last week. If it is all lecture, your own notes are the study guide.
What form will the exam take: multiple choice, short answers, problems or essays?
Why ask it
Format is something most professors will tell you outright, and it changes how you prepare: recognizing the right answer, recalling it cold, or building an argument against the clock. Get the number of questions as well, so you can work out how many minutes each one is worth.
Is the final cumulative, or does it only cover what came after the midterm?
Why ask it
Syllabuses are often vague on this. If it is cumulative with extra weight on the recent units, ask roughly how much extra, because that decides whether the first month of the course gets a weekend of your time or an evening.
Do you have old exams or practice questions I could work through beforehand?
Why ask it
A past paper shows the length, the wording and the difficulty better than any description can. Some instructors post them and some reuse questions and keep them back, which is their call. Where there is none, ask which homework problems sit closest to what the exam will ask.
What can we bring into the exam room: a formula sheet, a calculator, our notes?
Why ask it
Raise it a week ahead, not the night before. When one page of notes is allowed, writing that page is a study session in itself, and when nothing is, you know the formulas have to be memorized. Calculator rules can be specific down to the model, so name yours.
Do you curve grades in this course, and how do you handle a grade that lands just under a cutoff?
Why ask it
Weights are in the syllabus, but whether the cutoffs move often is not. In the first half of the term this is a question about policy. In the last week, from someone a fraction of a point short, it is a request for a favor and will be heard as one.
What is the most common reason students lose points on your assignments?
Why ask it
Expect one recurring thing, often mechanical: a claim with no evidence behind it, a skipped step in a derivation, a missing unit, a citation in the wrong form. Ask before the first assignment is due, then check your own draft for exactly that before you hand it in.
Is there a strong past example of this assignment I could look at?
Why ask it
Where privacy rules and the instructor allow it, you may be shown an old paper with the name removed. Plenty will say no, sometimes because they do not want thirty imitations of it. Then ask what the best submissions had in common, which gets you most of the same information.
Would you look at my thesis and outline before I write the whole paper?
Why ask it
One page is quick to read and still cheap to change, so five minutes can save you a weekend of writing in the wrong direction. Bring it at least a week before the deadline. Many professors will not read full drafts, but most will say whether the argument is worth making.
Could we go through my exam together so I can see where the points went?
Why ask it
Go to find the pattern, not to win points back, and say so when you sit down. Three questions missed for the same reason is one fix, which is a far better result than a list of twelve separate mistakes. If the points were added up wrong, that gets corrected along the way without an argument.
I do not understand how this answer was graded. Could you walk me through what full credit needed?
Why ask it
Put this way it is a question and not a complaint, and a real grading error tends to get fixed in the course of answering it. Sleep on the grade and reread the comments before you go. Find out too whether regrade requests go to the professor or the teaching assistant, and whether there is a deadline for making one.
Where do I stand in the course right now, and what would it take to finish a grade higher?
Why ask it
Work out your own number from the syllabus weights first, then check that they see it the same way. The second half is the useful one: you may hear that the final is heavy enough to change everything, or that the grade is close to settled and your hours belong in another course.
Is there extra credit or a chance to revise, or should I put everything into the work that is left?
Why ask it
Most professors will not give one student an offer the rest of the class does not get, so expect a no on extra credit and take it gracefully. The last part is what makes the question worth asking: it gets you the remaining assignments ranked by how far each can still move your grade.
I have exam accommodations through the disability office. How do you like to set them up?
Why ask it
The office approves the accommodation, but the logistics usually run through the instructor: where you take the exam, who proctors it, how much notice is needed. Raise it privately in the first two weeks, and remember you are arranging details, not explaining a diagnosis. Colleges handle this differently, so confirm the steps with the office itself.
Something outside school is getting in the way this term. What are my options in this course?
Why ask it
You do not owe the details, only enough for them to see it is serious. The options tend to have dates attached, whether an extension, an incomplete or a late withdrawal, and the college sets the rules for each, so ask how they work here and who else needs to know. Said in week six this is a plan, and said after the final it is an appeal.
Field and research
How do the ideas in this course show up in your own work?
Why ask it
Save it for the week a topic first catches your interest. A professor with a research project may connect it to a study or a book in progress, and one whose job is mostly teaching may tell you where it turns up in practice. Both answers show why the course is built the way it is.
What are you working on at the moment?
Why ask it
People can usually describe a current project at whatever level you are at, and enjoy being asked. Listen for the part that sounds as if it needs hands: data to clean, sources to track down, a study looking for participants. That detail is what you bring up if you later ask about helping.
How has this field changed since you started in it?
Why ask it
A textbook flattens decades into one settled account. Someone who lived through part of it can tell you which chapter was a fight when they were in graduate school and which method nobody uses any more, and that changes how you read the syllabus.
What do people in your field still argue about?
Why ask it
Introductory courses tend to present a subject as finished. This shows you where the open problems are, which helps if you are choosing a paper topic or wondering whether there is anything left to do. Notice how easily they say that nobody knows yet.
What would you read alongside the assigned material if you wanted to go further?
Why ask it
Ask for one book or article, not a list, and you are more likely to read it. What a professor recommends off the syllabus is often closer to what drew them into the subject in the first place. Come back and say what you made of it.
I am taking this as a requirement, not for my major. What should someone like me take away from it?
Why ask it
Many people in an introductory course are there for the requirement, and professors know it. Saying so honestly gets a better answer than faked passion, usually two or three habits of thinking they hope will outlast the details. It also marks you as someone trying to get something from the course, and that tends to be remembered.
Are there talks or seminars in the department an undergraduate can sit in on?
Why ask it
Many departments run a talk series that is open to anyone and announced only on a faculty mailing list. Find out which talks would make sense at your level and whether you can be added to the list. Going to a few is also how the rest of the department starts to recognize you.
Who else here works on this, and would you introduce me?
Why ask it
Keep it for when you have a real reason: a paper topic, a possible major, a project idea. An email to a stranger is far more likely to be answered when it opens with a colleague's name. If you are given the name without the introduction, mention who sent you in your first sentence.
Are there undergraduates working on your projects, and how did they end up there?
Why ask it
The route in differs: a formal application at one college, whoever asks first at another. How the current students got there tells you what to do next, whether that is a certain course, a program deadline, or asking again in the spring. Where the professor does no research of their own, ask who in the department takes students.
What would I need to have done before you would take me on as a research assistant?
Why ask it
General interest becomes a list: a course to pass, a method or a piece of software to learn, a semester to ask in. It also lets them say you are not close yet, which is better heard in your second year than your last. Ask whether the work is paid, for credit or voluntary, since that differs by college and by lab.
Major and career
I am thinking about majoring in this. How would I know whether it suits me?
Why ask it
Liking the introductory course is weak evidence, since upper-level work can feel like a different subject. Ask what the advanced courses demand week to week, and which students tend to switch out and why. A professor who only sells the major is recruiting, so put the same question to a senior.
I liked this course. Which one should I take next, and does it matter who teaches it?
Why ask it
The catalog lists what exists. A professor knows what order makes sense and which sections are worth rearranging a schedule for. They will rarely criticize a colleague, so listen for the names they offer with enthusiasm, and check how often the course they recommend is offered.
Which courses outside the requirements would you take if you wanted to be good at this?
Why ask it
Requirements are a floor. The answer often points outside the department, to statistics, programming, a writing course or a language, and it is advice the degree checklist will never give you. Ask early enough to fit one in, since some of these have prerequisites of their own.
What do people with this background go on to do, apart from graduate school?
Why ask it
Anyone who has taught for a while has watched students leave for jobs the department website never mentions. Ask for two or three real examples and what those students did while they were here. If they have lost touch with graduates, the career office or the alumni directory is the next place to try.
What does a working day in your field actually look like?
Why ask it
Careers get picked from job titles, and the days inside them are something else: the writing, the grant applications, the meetings, the long wait for results. Ask about the professor's own day and, if they have worked outside a university, about that one too.
How should I use my summers if I want to work in this field: an internship, a job, research, or more courses?
Why ask it
The right answer shifts by field and by year, and professors often know which employers and programs will take a student after only two years of coursework. Ask when applications open, because the dates tend to fall months earlier than students expect. If they cannot say, the career office or a senior in the major is the next stop.
If I were considering graduate school in this field, what should I do in the next year?
Why ask it
Good answers come with dates attached: a course to take before you apply, a project or writing sample to finish, a person who should know your work by then. If all you get is general encouragement, they may not know your work well enough yet. It is also fair to ask who should not go.
Are there scholarships, prizes or programs in this department that students tend to overlook?
Why ask it
Departments hold small awards, travel money and paid positions that get announced once in an email nobody opens. Faculty sit on the committees that hand them out and know which ones draw few applicants. Get the name of whoever runs each one and the month the call goes out.
Would you be willing to write me a recommendation later, and what would you need in order to write a strong one?
Why ask it
The second half matters more. You should hear something concrete: a graded piece of work they can quote, a second course with them, several weeks of notice with your materials attached. If the yes sounds hesitant, thank them and think about who knows your work better.
The professor
How did you end up doing this for a living?
Why ask it
Few people set out at eighteen to teach this subject, and the route often includes a changed major, a job that did not fit or a class taken by accident. That is reassuring to hear if your own plan is unclear. Ask once the course question you came with has been answered.
What kind of student were you in college?
Why ask it
Plenty of professors were not the model student, and the ones who struggled early tend to say so with some relish. It is a friendly question for a second or third visit. From a stranger in the first minute it can sound like stalling.
Did one of your own professors change the direction you took?
Why ask it
There is often one name, and the story usually turns on something small: a comment on a paper, an invitation to a lab, a book lent across a desk. It is worth hearing as a reminder that a visit like the one you are making is where those stories begin.
What did you not take seriously as an undergraduate that you now think matters?
Why ask it
This is the advice question with the vagueness taken out. Answers tend to be particular: a statistics course avoided, a language dropped, four years without once going to office hours. It carries more weight from someone who made the mistake and can say what it cost.
What do you enjoy most about teaching this course?
Why ask it
You will hear which unit they would teach for free, and that is usually where their best lectures are. A long pause can mean the course was assigned to them. If so, ask what they would rather be teaching, and you may learn about an elective worth taking.
What do people outside the university get wrong about your job?
Why ask it
The job differs a great deal by institution. At a research university teaching may be the smaller share, next to grants, reviewing and committees, and at a community or teaching college it can fill most of the week. Whichever you hear, it explains why one email is answered in minutes and another waits days.
What do first-year students get wrong about college that you see every fall?
Why ask it
Expect something practical: treating the syllabus as optional reading, never forming a study group, waiting for permission to come and talk. Because the question is about students in general, a professor can be blunt without it being about you.
What do you do when you are not working on this?
Why ask it
Look around the room first: a race bib on the wall, a band poster, a shelf of novels in another language. Ask about what is on display and let them decide whether to mention family or home life. It suits the end of a visit that has gone well, or a class assignment to profile a professor.
What do you wish students asked you?
Why ask it
A good closer, because it hands the conversation to them. You might hear about something students never raise, such as how grading really works or what the department offers that nobody uses. If they need a moment, wait: the pause often ends in something they have wanted to say for a while.
Interviewing a professor
Do you mind if I record this so that I quote you accurately?
Why ask it
Ask before your first real question, and say what the interview is for: a class paper, the student newspaper, a career project. A recording frees you to listen instead of scribbling. If they would prefer you did not, take notes and read each quote back before you leave.
What do you remember about the first class you ever taught?
Why ask it
First classes tend to go wrong in ways that are funny years later: far too much material, a lecture that ran out after twenty minutes, a question from the back row with no answer. It gets a professor telling a story instead of reciting a CV, which is why it works near the start.
How do you prepare for a lecture you have already given many times?
Why ask it
Students see the fifty minutes and none of what sits behind them. One professor rewrites the notes every year and another walks in with a single index card, and the way each describes it shows what they think a lecture is for. Few interviewers think to ask, so the answer will not be a rehearsed one.
Which piece of your own work are you proudest of, and why that one?
Why ask it
The choice is often not the best-known thing they have done. It might be a course built from nothing, a student they supervised or a book that took a decade, and the reason gives you a paragraph the faculty web page does not have.
How have students changed in the years you have been teaching?
Why ask it
Someone with twenty years in a classroom has watched laptops, phones and AI tools arrive, and tends to have a view more exact than a complaint. Ask for one change for the better alongside one for the worse, or your write-up will carry only half of what they think.
What has been the biggest setback of your career, and what did you do afterwards?
Why ask it
A rejected paper, a grant that did not come through, a job search that ran for years: stretches like these rarely make it onto a CV. Hold the question until the second half of the interview, when they have warmed up, and if the answer is brief, let it be.
What would you tell a student who is thinking about becoming a professor?
Why ask it
Career-interview assignments nearly always include this one, and honest answers are mixed: the length of the training, the state of the job market in their field, what makes it worth doing anyway. Follow up by asking what they would want that student to find out before committing.
Could I email you if I need to check a fact or a quote while I write this up?
Why ask it
Make this your last question. When you sit down to write you will find a gap in your notes, a date or the spelling of a name, and a professor who has already agreed to a follow-up tends to reply fast. Send your thanks the same day.
Office Hours, Used Properly
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Making the Visit Worth Their Time
Bring Your Attempt, Not Just Your Confusion
Arrive with the problem, your partial answer, and the point where it broke down. Ten minutes of preparation turns a vague conversation into a specific diagnosis, and it shows you have already done the part of the work that is yours.
Go Early in the Term
Office hours tend to be quiet in the first few weeks and crowded before exams. The same question gets a longer, more patient answer in week two, and the professor will remember that you came before you were in trouble.
Keep the First Visit Short
Ten or fifteen focused minutes, one or two questions and a clear exit leave a better impression than an hour of general talk. If other students are waiting outside, offer to come back. You are showing that you are easy to help, not trying to get everything at once.
Report Back
If they recommend a paper, a course, or a person to email, follow up and say so briefly next time. Few students do, and a professor who has watched you act on advice has something real to say when you later ask for a letter.
Bring Bad News While It Can Still Be Fixed
Two missed weeks, a failed midterm or trouble at home is far easier to deal with in week six than in the week of the final. Extensions, incompletes and withdrawals carry deadlines set by the college, and a professor can only offer what is still open. Say what has happened in two sentences and ask what the options are.
Interviewing a Professor for an Assignment
Email to ask for twenty minutes instead of arriving in open office hours, where students with course questions may be waiting behind you. Read the faculty page first so the time does not go on facts already published. Bring your questions in order with the two you most need near the top, because a professor's stories run long and the last few rarely get asked.
Asking for a Recommendation
- 1Ask early, a month or more before the deadline where you can, and say what the letter is for
- 2Ask whether they can write a strong letter, which gives them a graceful way to decline
- 3Send the deadline, the submission link, your resume or transcript, and the work of yours they graded
- 4Add three or four sentences on what you would like the letter to be able to say
- 5Remind them once, about a week out, in a short message with the same details attached
- 6Tell them the outcome either way, because letter writers often never hear
Common Pitfalls
Asking What Is on the Exam
It gets a stock answer and sounds as if you only want the grade. Ask what kind of practice matches the test, or what a student who understood the material could do. That is nearly the same information, and professors give it freely.
Asking Something the Syllabus Answers
Deadlines, weighting, late policies and required reading are written down. Checking there first costs a minute, and it saves the visit for the questions that need a person.
Appearing Only When You Need Something
When your first visit is also a request for a letter or an extension, the professor has nothing to go on but the request. A letter can only describe what its writer has seen, so let them see some work first.
Emailing About a Grade in the First Hour
Wait a day, reread the feedback, and ask what a stronger version of your answer would have contained. That gets a real reply far more often than a challenge to the grade itself.
Asking for Extra Credit in the Last Week
By then the fair answer is nearly always no, and the request can read as though the course was ignored until the grade arrived. Ask in the middle of the term which remaining pieces of work carry the most weight, and put the effort there.