Questions to Ask Alumni
Questions for a student or applicant talking to graduates of a school: housing, classes, money, finding friends, and what they only understood after leaving. Use them in a coffee chat, an alumni panel, or a first email.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What did you study, and what are you doing now?
Why ask it
A low-effort opener that also sets your expectations. If the two have little to do with each other, that is worth knowing before you agonize over choosing a major.
What do you miss about being here?
Why ask it
People answer this warmly and specifically, usually naming a place or a routine rather than an achievement. Those details are the ones you can actually go and find.
Where did you spend most of your time on campus?
Why ask it
The honest answer is often a library floor, a rehearsal room, or a lab bench. It tells you where the school's real center of gravity was for someone like them.
What was your housing situation, and what would you change about it?
Why ask it
Housing decides who you meet in your first year. Graduates tend to have strong views about which dorms or neighborhoods were worth it, and nobody publishes that.
Which class was worth the workload, and which was not?
Why ask it
Forcing a comparison gets you past polite praise. The class they resent is as useful to know about as the one they loved, since requirements often make it unavoidable.
How did you find your people in the first few months?
Why ask it
Listen for the mechanism: a floor, a team, a job, a class group. Friendships at college are mostly a product of repeated proximity, and knowing where theirs came from is practical.
What did you get involved with outside class, and how did you find it?
Why ask it
The how matters more than the what. Many students never learn that the good groups recruit through word of mouth rather than the activities fair.
How did you handle money as a student?
Why ask it
Answers cover campus jobs, term-time hours, and which costs they underestimated. This is easier to ask a graduate than a financial aid office and often more candid.
Was there a professor who made a difference, and how did that relationship start?
Why ask it
The starting point is the part you can copy: a question after class, a bad draft brought to office hours, a summer research email. The relationship rarely begins with anything dramatic.
What was your hardest semester, and what made it hard?
Why ask it
It separates academic difficulty from everything else, illness, money, homesickness, a bad living situation, and shows what support they could actually get when it happened.
What did you do the summer after your second year?
Why ask it
That summer is usually the pivot point in a college career. Hearing how they filled it, including if they filled it badly, tells you what to plan for now.
Did you use the career center, and was it any use?
Why ask it
Quality varies by department and by year. A graduate will tell you plainly whether the office was a resume-formatting service or a genuine route to interviews.
What did you not know to ask for while you were a student?
Why ask it
Schools rarely advertise their discretionary help: emergency funds, travel grants, deadline extensions, equipment loans. Alumni often find out about them only afterwards.
How did you decide what to do after graduation?
Why ask it
Look for how much of the decision was deliberate. Many people follow whichever door opened first, and that is worth hearing without the retrospective tidiness.
What did your first year after leaving actually look like?
Why ask it
The gap between graduation and a settled job is the part alumni panels skip. A candid answer resets expectations about how quickly things are meant to come together.
Which of the things you worried about turned out not to matter?
Why ask it
Usually grades in one course, a rejected application, or a club they did not get into. It is a rare question that lowers a student's anxiety with specifics rather than reassurance.
Has the alumni network done anything concrete for you?
Why ask it
Ask for an event rather than an impression. If nothing specific comes back, treat the school's claims about its network as marketing rather than evidence.
What advice do students here get that you think is wrong?
Why ask it
This invites disagreement with the official line, which is where the interesting answers are: about internships, majors, or how early you are told to specialize.
If you were a student here again, what would you do differently with your time?
Why ask it
Time is the one resource you still control. Answers usually name a specific trade they would make, more seminars and fewer clubs, or the reverse, which you can act on this term.
Would you be open to staying in touch, and what is the best way to reach you?
Why ask it
Asking directly avoids the awkward guess later. If the answer is warm, follow up once with what you did about their advice rather than with a general thank-you.
Finding and Talking to Alumni
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to Find Someone to Talk To
- 1Search LinkedIn by school and filter by employer or city rather than by job title.
- 2Ask the alumni office whether there is a mentoring scheme already running.
- 3Ask your department administrator, who often knows which graduates answer email.
- 4Go to alumni panels and speak to the panelists afterwards, not during the questions.
- 5Ask a professor for one introduction rather than a general list of contacts.
Writing the First Message
- Keep it to four sentences: who you are, the connection, what you want to ask about, and how long you need.
- Name one specific thing from their background so it is clear the note is not a template.
- Ask for fifteen or twenty minutes and offer two concrete time windows.
- Say plainly that you are looking for advice, not a job, if that is true.
- If there is no reply, send one short follow-up after two weeks and then let it go.
In the Conversation
Ask about decisions, not achievements
Their list of accomplishments is usually public. What you cannot look up is why they chose one option over another and what they gave up doing it.
Let silences sit
The most useful answers often arrive after a pause. Resist filling the gap with another question and you will get the second, more honest half.
Close the loop
Report back once you have acted on something they said. That single message is what turns a one-off chat into someone who will vouch for you later.