It’s that time of year that students are anxious for all semester. If Christmas (or any other holiday celebrated) wasn’t already the most magical time of the year, it certainly feels like a true miracle after the pain of finals week. Getting to scarf down food, cozy up with your favorite holiday movies, and drink way more hot chocolate than is probably healthy is a well-deserved break from the never-ending anxiety of tests.
But even with all of that joy, there is one thing all college kids are secretly dreading: the questions your relatives are going to bombard you with after not seeing you since you took off for college, especially the ones they couldn’t get out in the blink of an eye that is Thanksgiving break. So, lovely relatives, here are the questions your college kids are crossing their fingers for under the table for, praying you don’t ask:
1. So, any lucky guys/gals?
We know you want to see us happy and cozied up to some super-hot, super smart college kid we managed to trap during the few months we were away, but in all honesty, dating is not the purpose of college. We are there to learn, and there’s a good chance in between drinking a gallon of coffee a day and cramming entire textbooks into our heads overnight there wasn’t a lot of time to get our fairytale romance started. It’s an awkward question. We all hate it. If we find someone special, we’ll tell you! Probably immediately because we’ll be so excited we don’t have to be afraid of “the question” anymore. Promise.
2. Are you sure that's what you want to major in?
This is annoying for two reasons. For one, no, we’re probably not sure, because college is filled with so many options this might just be the flavor of the week, but let us roll with it for now. And secondly… really? Is that the question you want to ask someone who just told you what they want to spend their life pursuing? There is value beyond STEM majors, so from a journalism/English major, please stop shaming the humanities majors in your families.
3. How was your first set of grades?
We don’t want to lie to you, but we also don’t want to cry in front of the whole family as we are forced to relive the fact that we didn’t exactly get that 4.0 we swore at the beginning of the semester we would get at any cost. “How is college going?” is much easier to get around. Go with that one.
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