Questions to Ask a Psychology Professor
Questions for a student to take into office hours: what the professor's research involves, how to get into a lab, what a graduate application needs, and what they think of the field they work in.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What is your research about, in the version you would give a first-year student?
Why ask it
Asking for the simple version is a favour rather than an imposition, and it gets you a usable answer instead of a paper title. If they cannot get it into a couple of sentences, that is often a sign the work is broad or between projects, which is worth knowing before you ask to join it.
How did you end up working on that rather than something else?
Why ask it
Research paths are far less deliberate than a syllabus implies: an advisor, a dataset that happened to be available, a question left over from someone else's project. Hearing how contingent it was tends to make your own uncertainty about direction feel less like a problem.
What do students in this class usually get wrong about the material?
Why ask it
The single most useful question you can ask in office hours, because they mark the exams and already know where the class loses points. Expect something structural, such as confusing correlation with cause or reciting a study without being able to say what it demonstrated.
What did you want us to take from this course that is not on the exam?
Why ask it
Most courses have an intention underneath the assessment, usually about reading evidence rather than remembering results. The answer also tells you what to emphasise in an essay, since the thing they care about is the thing that earns credit at the top of the range.
Which of the studies we covered do you have doubts about?
Why ask it
This invites them to break character from the textbook, and good teachers enjoy it. Expect at least one famous experiment to be described as weaker than the course presented it, and note whether they distinguish a finding that failed to replicate from one that was oversold.
How much statistics do I actually need, and when should I learn it?
Why ask it
Ask this early rather than in your final year. The practical answer is usually more than students expect and earlier, because statistical literacy is what lets you read a paper properly and it is close to a requirement for graduate work. Ask which specific course or tool to start with.
What should I read if I want to go past the textbook on this?
Why ask it
Ask for one review paper rather than a list. A review gives you the argument and the citations at once, and being able to discuss one paper properly is worth more in a later conversation than having skimmed six. Notice if they steer you away from popular science books.
Is there anything in your lab an undergraduate could genuinely help with?
Why ask it
The honest word is genuinely, because a lot of undergraduate research work is data entry and participant scheduling. That is still worth doing, and it is better to know in advance. The answer also tells you whether the lab is active this term or between grants.
How do people usually get into your lab, and when should they ask?
Why ask it
There is nearly always a real mechanism behind the polite answer: a specific term, a course you should have taken, a graduate student who does the day-to-day supervising. Asking about timing matters because most labs fill positions months before the work starts.
What does a research assistant actually do in your lab, week to week?
Why ask it
You want hours, tasks, and whether it is paid or for credit. Students routinely accept positions expecting to design studies and spend a year coding video or cleaning spreadsheets. Both can lead somewhere, but only if you know which one you agreed to.
What is the difference between doing well in your class and being good at psychology?
Why ask it
An unusual question and one that tends to be answered candidly. Exams reward organised recall, while research rewards tolerance for tedium, careful writing, and comfort with being wrong. Hearing the difference named is useful if you are strong at one and worried about the other.
What makes an application stand out when you are reading graduate applications?
Why ask it
You are asking someone who sits on the committee, which beats any general advice. Expect specificity to matter more than enthusiasm: a clear match with a supervisor's work, evidence of finishing something, and a letter from someone who supervised you closely rather than a famous name who did not.
What do you look for before you agree to write someone a recommendation?
Why ask it
Better asked a year early than a week before a deadline. The answer usually involves having seen you work rather than having taught you, which tells you exactly what to arrange now: a project, a lab role, or a substantial piece of written work they have read.
From where you sit, what is the difference between a PhD, a PsyD, and a master's route?
Why ask it
Ask an academic and you will get a research-weighted answer, which is worth knowing as a bias. Push for the practical distinctions: funding, length, debt, what each licence permits, and how each is regarded by the places you might want to work.
Would you tell me honestly whether a research career is a good bet right now?
Why ask it
Giving explicit permission for a discouraging answer is what makes this work. Expect something about the number of applicants relative to positions, the years spent on temporary contracts, and what people do instead. A professor who will say all that is one worth staying in touch with.
What do students who wanted clinical training but did not get in end up doing?
Why ask it
Programmes are competitive and this outcome is common, so it is worth planning for while you still have time. Useful answers name real alternatives: related licences, a year of research or clinical experience before reapplying, or adjacent work that suited someone better than the original plan.
What part of your job would surprise us?
Why ask it
Gets you the parts a lecture never shows: grant writing, reviewing, committee work, administration, and how little of the week is spent thinking about the subject. It is also the most reliable way to find out whether an academic career would suit you.
What do you disagree with most of your colleagues about?
Why ask it
Puts the field's live arguments in front of you, which is what a syllabus tends to smooth over. Whatever they name, methods, categories, how much of the literature generalises, is a real question you could work on, and knowing it is contested is the first step.
What would you have done differently at my stage?
Why ask it
More productive than asking for advice in the abstract, because it forces a concrete answer: started statistics sooner, chosen a lab for the supervision rather than the topic, taken a year out. It also tells you what they think you are getting wrong without them having to say so directly.
If I wanted to stay in touch, what would make that worth your time?
Why ask it
Asks plainly about how these relationships actually work rather than hoping. Answers are usually specific and modest: come to office hours with something you have read, send a short update once a term, ask for one thing at a time. It is also the difference between a name and a referee.
Making office hours worth the walk
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you go
- 1Read one thing they wrote, even just the abstract and the discussion, and be able to say what the question was.
- 2Decide the one thing you want from the meeting: a lab position, advice on graduate applications, or help with the material. Trying to do all three gets none of them.
- 3Write your questions down and bring them on paper. Office hours are short and easy to lose to small talk.
- 4Check the practicalities yourself first. Deadlines, prerequisites, and application requirements are published, and spending the meeting on them wastes the part only they can give you.
- 5Go early in the term. By the last fortnight everyone wants a letter, an extension, or a place in a lab.
- 6Send a three-line follow-up afterwards naming what you will do next, then do it. That is what makes a second meeting easy to get.
Asking well
- Ask about their work before you ask for anything. It is not flattery, it is how you find out whether you want the position you are about to request.
- Say what you have already tried. I read this and got stuck here gets a different conversation from I do not understand the topic.
- Give permission for a blunt answer when you want one. Tell me if this is a bad idea removes the obligation to be encouraging.
- Ask for one concrete next step at the end of any advice, so you leave with something to do rather than something to think about.
- Take notes in front of them. It signals you will act on the answer, and you will not remember the names and papers otherwise.
- Do not ask them to settle a grade dispute in the same conversation as a request for research work. Keep the two entirely separate.
What annoys professors
Asking what is on the exam
It is the fastest way to signal that you are managing the course rather than learning it. Asking which parts of the material they consider load-bearing gets you most of the same information without the impression.
Requesting a letter with no evidence to write about
A professor who has only seen you in a large lecture can confirm your grade and little else, which produces a weak letter. If you want a strong one, arrange the evidence first: a project, a lab term, a substantial paper they have read.
Treating them as a source of therapy
A psychology professor is not your clinician, and a research background does not qualify them to treat anyone. If you need support, ask them where the counselling service is, which they will happily tell you, and keep the rest of the meeting about the work.
Arriving with nothing specific
Tell me about psychology puts the whole burden on them and produces a general answer. One concrete question, even a small one, is what turns a five-minute exchange into a useful half hour.