Questions to Ask Professor
Questions to ask your professor about the course and about your performance in it: office hours, marking standards, reading lists, what your last piece of work showed, and whether you are on track before the final assessment. After the practical ones come the interesting questions to ask a professor about the field, its open problems, and how they came to it, then research openings, careers, and recommendation letters. The list ends with questions for a professor you are considering as a research supervisor, covering supervision load, draft turnaround, funding, and authorship.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
The course
What is the best way to reach you, and how long do you usually take to reply?
Why ask it
A professor who says two working days during term is giving you something you can plan around. Watch for a vague "email me any time," which often means messages sit unread behind a few hundred others. The answer also tells you which channel they actually read: inbox, course forum, or the door.
Do I need to book office hours, or can I just turn up?
Why ask it
Drop-in hours turn into a queue in the two weeks before exams, so if it is drop-in you want to go in week three, not week eleven. If they use a booking sheet, ask how far ahead it fills, since some fill the moment an assignment is set.
When students struggle in this course, where does it usually go wrong?
Why ask it
Most professors can name the exact week or skill where the class splits, and it is often something the syllabus makes look small. This gets you a concrete answer where "how do I succeed?" gets you keep up with the reading.
What separates a strong answer from an adequate one in your marking?
Why ask it
The gap is usually one specific move: showing the working, arguing against your own claim, citing the set text rather than the lecture. If the reply stays at "just know the material," ask to see a marked example from a previous year instead.
Which readings is the assessment actually built on, and which are background?
Why ask it
Reading lists accumulate items that stay on out of habit. A professor who can rank them is handing you back several hours a week. One who insists everything is equally central may not have revised the list recently.
How many hours a week outside class does this course take the students who do well?
Why ask it
Ask about the students who do well, not the average. If the number is double what you had planned, week two is a better time to find out than the week of the midterm.
What does the final assessment reward that the weekly work does not practise?
Why ask it
Weekly problem sets and a final essay or exam can test different things, and that gap is where a steady term turns into a poor final mark. A professor who names it is telling you what to practise on your own.
How do you prefer students to push back on something you have said?
Why ask it
Some want the challenge live in the seminar, some want it in the essay, some want it at their door afterwards. Guessing wrong reads as rudeness in one room and as passivity in another, and neither impression is easy to reverse.
If you were stuck on this problem, where would you start?
Why ask it
Bring the actual problem. Watching an experienced person decide where to begin is the part you cannot get from the textbook.
What is this course preparing me for in the ones that come after it?
Why ask it
The answer names the two or three ideas that later courses assume you kept. Those are worth learning properly even where the exam only brushes them.
How much of what we cover here gets used in practice, and by whom?
Why ask it
You find out which techniques survive contact with a job and which exist to build the next layer of theory. A professor with industry or clinical contact will name roles and settings rather than speaking generally.
Is there anything in this course you would teach differently with more weeks?
Why ask it
It invites an honest account of what has been compressed or cut, and those gaps are frequently where students later find they are underprepared. Expect a real answer here from anyone who has taught the course more than twice.
What should I read next if I want to go beyond the syllabus?
Why ask it
Ask for one thing rather than a list. A single paper you will finish is worth more than eight recommendations you will not open.
Your performance
From what you have marked so far, am I on track, borderline, or in trouble?
Why ask it
Offering three options makes it easy to answer straight. Plenty of professors will not predict a grade, but most will pick one of those, and it is worth asking before the midpoint while the answer can still change something.
What did you think of my last piece of work, beyond the grade?
Why ask it
Written comments are usually brief. Asking in person gets you the observation they did not have room to write down.
What is the one thing holding my work back most?
Why ask it
Asking for one thing forces a ranking. A list of six weaknesses is easy to nod at and ignore, while a single named habit, such as thin evidence or rushed conclusions, is something you can fix by the next deadline.
When I get work back, how would you like me to use your comments on the next piece?
Why ask it
It signals you intend to act on feedback rather than file it, and it often surfaces a pattern the professor has already noticed in your writing. Vague comments plus a vague answer here is a sign you will need to ask for specifics in person each time.
What would my work need to do to move up a grade band?
Why ask it
Put this way it is a question about the standard, not a request for marks, so you get a description instead of a defence of the number. Write the answer down and bring it back with the next piece.
Would you be willing to look at this before I submit it?
Why ask it
The most valuable request in office hours and the one students avoid making. Ask early, bring something already in progress, and say exactly what you want checked.
Where did I lose the most marks on the exam: knowledge, time, or misreading the question?
Why ask it
The person who marked the script can usually tell at a glance. If you ran out of time on the last question, more revision of the content will not help next time, and timed practice will.
Has my work changed since the start of term, as far as you can see?
Why ask it
Someone who has marked three of your pieces can see a direction that you cannot see from inside one grade. If it has stayed flat, ask what they expected to be different by now.
How does my participation in class come across from where you sit?
Why ask it
Students who speak often are sometimes told they talk past the reading, and quiet ones that a single prepared comment each week would do. Where participation is graded, asking is the only way to hear how it is going before the mark arrives.
I have fallen behind in this course. What would you prioritise in the time that is left?
Why ask it
Saying it plainly gets you triage, which is more use than reassurance: what to drop, what to secure, and which assessment still carries enough weight to matter. Most professors would sooner hear it in week six than read it in the exam script.
Given what is left to be assessed, is the grade I want still reachable?
Why ask it
This is arithmetic as much as judgment, so bring the marks you have and the weightings. If the honest answer is no, ask how withdrawing, pass or fail options, or retakes work at your institution, because the rules and deadlines differ from place to place.
The field
Which questions in this area are still genuinely open?
Why ask it
You learn which parts of the syllabus are settled fact and which are still contested, which changes how you should write about them. It also shows you where a student project could sit without duplicating existing work.
What do people outside the field usually get wrong about it?
Why ask it
The answer often exposes a popular simplification you may be carrying yourself. It is also a good test of whether they can talk about their subject without jargon.
What result in this field still surprises you?
Why ask it
Every subject has a finding its specialists still enjoy explaining, and it is rarely in the first-year textbook. It is an easy thing to ask in the last two minutes of office hours, when the practical business is done.
Where does this field connect with others in ways people miss?
Why ask it
Gets you something the syllabus will not, and often produces a second reading list or a department worth visiting.
Is there a paper or chapter that changed how you think about this subject?
Why ask it
A named text is a shortcut past the textbook into the arguments people in the field are actually having. It also gives you something concrete to come back and discuss, which is how these relationships usually begin.
How do you read a paper in this field quickly?
Why ask it
A concrete skill nobody teaches directly. Most researchers read the sections in a particular order and will describe it if asked.
What separates a good undergraduate argument from a publishable one?
Why ask it
Sharpens what you are aiming at. Answers usually concern the size of the claim being made rather than the quality of the prose.
What are you working on in your own research right now?
Why ask it
How they answer matters more than what they say. Someone who can explain it to a student in three sentences is likely to teach well and to supervise well. Watch also for whether the work is active or something they last touched years ago.
What ethical problems come up in your own work?
Why ask it
Asking about their work rather than the field avoids a lecture on principles. Real answers involve data, consent, funding or who gets named as an author.
How did you end up in this specialty?
Why ask it
Academic paths are less deliberate than they look from outside. The accidents in the answer are the useful part if you are thinking about the same route.
What do you wish you had done differently as a student?
Why ask it
Answers cluster around asking for help sooner, taking the harder course, and writing more often. Where a particular professor lands shows you what they value.
Careers and references
Do you take students onto your research, and what would you want to see before saying yes?
Why ask it
The honest answer usually contains a threshold: a grade in a specific course, a lab or statistics skill, a minimum number of hours a week. Hearing it now means you can meet the bar before you ask rather than after being turned down.
Are there seminars, reading groups, or talks where students are welcome?
Why ask it
Departments run more of these than they advertise, and turning up puts you in the room with the people who write letters and hire assistants. If the answer is that students never attend, that itself says something about the department's culture.
What skills do employers and graduate programs in this field actually check for?
Why ask it
Departments and hiring panels often want different things, and professors who sit on admissions committees know which line of a transcript gets read first. If the answer is only "work hard," they may be out of touch with where their graduates go.
If I want to continue in this field, what should I be doing this year rather than later?
Why ask it
Some steps only work early: a language, a methods course, a summer placement with an application deadline in autumn. Asking about timing rather than about advice in general gets you the items with expiry dates attached.
Which paths have your former students taken that surprised you?
Why ask it
This pulls out the routes that do not appear in the departmental brochure, and it tells you whether they keep in touch with graduates at all. A professor with no idea where their students went is unlikely to be much use as a career contact.
What is the honest case against graduate school in this field?
Why ask it
More useful than asking whether you should apply. A professor who cares about you will give you the funding, timeline and job market picture without decoration.
If I hope to ask you for a reference eventually, what do you need to see from me?
Why ask it
Strong letters rest on specifics: a seminar paper they can quote, a project they watched you run, sustained contact over a term. Asking early tells you what evidence to create and how much notice they need, which is often more than students assume.
Is there something I should be asking you that students usually do not?
Why ask it
Handing the question back tends to surface the thing they have been waiting all term to tell someone: a deadline, a funding pot, a prerequisite nobody reads. Keep it for the end, once they have a sense of what you are after.
Choosing a supervisor
Do you prefer to hand students a project, or to have them arrive with their own?
Why ask it
Neither is better, but a mismatch is painful for years. Handed projects start faster and can feel like someone else's work. Self-directed ones suit people who already have a question and stall those who do not.
How many students are you supervising at the moment?
Why ask it
The number, plus whether it is rising, predicts how much attention you will get better than anything they say about their intentions. Someone with a dozen students, a lab to run, and a committee chair is not going to read your drafts quickly, however willing they sound.
How often do you and your students meet, and who books the meeting?
Why ask it
Standing weekly slots and student-initiated meetings produce very different experiences. If the students do all the chasing, ask one of them how often meetings actually happen, because the intended rhythm and the real one often diverge.
When a student sends you a draft, what is your usual turnaround?
Why ask it
Three weeks is workable if you plan for it and ruinous if you do not know in advance. An answer of "pretty quickly" without a number is worth pressing on, since draft delay is the most common way a thesis timeline slips.
What does a productive first year look like to you?
Why ask it
Their answer tells you what will be measured, and whether the milestones are concrete: a pilot study, a qualifying exam, a draft chapter. If it is all attitude and no output, expectations will be set later and retroactively.
How is authorship decided on work I contribute to?
Why ask it
Ask for the rule, not the sentiment. "We are all fair here" is not a rule. Who is first author on a paper built mainly from your data, and who decides, is the thing that causes the most lasting bad feeling in research groups.
Is there funding attached to this position, and how long is it secured for?
Why ask it
Funding that runs out a year before a thesis normally finishes is a common and quiet problem. Ask what happens in that final year, and whether it has happened to a previous student.
What kind of person struggles in your group?
Why ask it
This is the most useful version of the fit question, because it invites a specific answer rather than a flattering one. Someone who says nobody struggles either has not noticed or is managing your impression.
Which of your current or former students should I talk to for an honest account?
Why ask it
Anyone confident about their supervision will name two or three without hesitation, including someone who has finished and left. Hesitation, or a list of only current students who still depend on them, is information.
What would you want me to have read or learned before I started?
Why ask it
You get a concrete preparation list and a sense of the technical floor. It also tests whether they think in terms of building people up or of hiring skills already finished.
Talking to your professors
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to make an office hour count
Go early in the term
Week three is quiet and week eleven is a queue. The same fifteen minutes buys far more attention before assessment season, and by the time you need help in earnest the professor already knows who you are.
Bring the work, not just the worry
A marked essay, a failing block of code, a specific paragraph of the reading you cannot follow. Concrete material lets them diagnose in minutes. "I am finding this hard" usually produces sympathy and a study tip.
Say what you have already tried
It stops them repeating advice you have exhausted, and it separates you from students who arrive hoping to be handed the answer.
Write down what you agreed
If they suggest a text, a method, or a deadline, note it and mention it next time. Professors track who follows up, and that record is what a reference letter is eventually built from.
Phrasing that gets a straight answer
Ask about last year, not the general case
"Where did the class struggle most last year?" produces a week and a topic. "How do I do well?" produces advice about keeping up with the reading. The same substitution works for marking, placements, and letters.
Put a unit on it
Ask for days, hours, or a count: turnaround on email, notice needed for a reference, hours a week a research assistant works. Numeric questions get numeric answers; open ones get encouragement.
Give them an easy way to say no
"If you are not taking students this year, is there someone you would point me to?" costs them nothing and usually produces a name rather than a polite deferral.
Say what you will do with the answer
"I am deciding between a methods course and a language this year" tells them which of two possible answers is useful to you, and it turns general goodwill into a specific recommendation.
What tends to go wrong
Asking what is already on the syllabus
Deadlines, weighting, and reading lists are usually in writing. Asking anyway signals you have not read it, and it burns the part of the meeting you needed for the harder question.
Opening with a grade dispute
If you want a mark revisited, ask first how the answer was expected to be structured. Understanding the standard is a better route to a regrade than arguing about the number, and it keeps the conversation usable afterwards.
Treating one professor as a whole department
Their view of careers, methods, and open questions is one informed view. Ask two or three and compare before you plan a degree around a single answer.
Disappearing after the ask
If they recommend a paper or a contact and never hear from you again, the next request lands differently. A short note reporting what came of it costs two minutes.