The holidays are quickly approaching, so here's some advice for any friends or family of students currently attending college...

These questions are prohibited over the holidays: How's school going? What are your plans for after graduation? How are your grades? Are you dating anyone? And here's why...

1. How's school going?

This question is one we definitely don't want to hear over break (Break - a pause in work/school or during an activity or event.). The purpose of break during the school year is to let us go home and be able to enjoy time with family and friends without worrying or thinking about school. School is stressful for us, so please understand, break is for us to relax and not to think about school.

2. What are your plans after graduation?

Unless we're graduation seniors, we most likely don't know yet. Of course we know what we want to do occupation wise, but once you start asking questions like: where do you want to live, when are you wanting to get married, when are you planning on having kids, etc...we'll tell you we have no idea, because we don't. Right now our goal is to graduate college and worry about keeping our GPA above a 3, not about what our life will look like in 5-10 years.

3. How are your grades?

Another thing we don't want to talk about over break. Like I said before, break is made for us to relax and be with our family/friends without worrying about school. And please, just because we don't want to talk about school, don't automatically assume we're failing. Most of us probably just got done taking finals, so we really don't feel up to talking about grades.

4. Are you dating anyone?

Please stop asking us this. I can tell you no matter who the student you are asking this to is, we absolutely hate this question. First off, if you're a close family or friend, I'm almost positive you would know if we were dating someone without you having to ask. Second, this question kind of makes us feel bad, and I'll tell you why...usually when we are asked this and our answer is "no", more times than not the reply is "oh". This makes us feel bad because at this point in our lives, most of us are ready to find that special someone to spend time with, and by you asking this it kind of makes us sad. How I see it is when it's your time to find love, then you will. You can't rush love like you can a package for delivery.

So please, just let us enjoy our break and be happy for us for not dropping out yet.

Side note: it is absolutely okay to ask what we want to eat, what we want for Christmas, or what we want to watch on TV.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!