Explaining college life to grandparents

Perhaps some of you have heard of the “Hawk Tuah” Girl. You may have also seen that she came out with a song to explain to her grandmother what exactly “hawk tuah” means.

Upon seeing this I realized that there isn’t a more harrowing experience than when a grandparent asks you about college life.

After hearing her song, I decided to interview various Miami University students (ask them questions after sliding into their Yik Yak DMs) to find out how Miami students respond to their familial inquiries. Below is a compilation of the best responses to various questions.

What does BYOB mean?

This question seems to be asked primarily by grandparents who overheard phone conversations.

There were a few good responses; one student told his grandpa it meant “Bring your own book,” claiming it was for a study session. Another responded to their grandmother, a little too hastily, that it meant “Bring your own boyfriend.” This caused her grandma to post to the Miami parents’ Facebook page that sororities had to clarify whether or not boyfriends were provided for girls or whether they had to find and bring their own.

What is a BORG?

A poor girl in Tri Delta got asked this one by her grandfather, who was once a pastor for a Baptist church in the South. She had the misfortune of clicking on her family group chat, rather than the spring break trip chat, texting “who else is getting a BORG tonight?” (Yes I know you’d think she could at least capitalize the first letter in her message, but I digress).

And while this Tri-Delt did delete her message it wasn’t before her grandpa could ask, “What’s a BORG?”

After 15 seconds of sweating bullets and mental acuity, which she hadn’t had since waking up nine minutes before her Communications 101 final, she responded “just a bag of orange and red glow sticks lol.”

Dorms are single-sex right?

At least 40% of the student population seems to have been asked this question by a grandparent on at least one side of the family.

Enjoy what you're reading?
Signup for our newsletter

Perhaps it's because these poor grandparents have the awareness of Joe Biden during the CNN debate, or maybe it's because they are still fixated on the invention of sliced bread. But for whatever reason, mixed dorms seem to befuddle boomers more than cryptocurrency and Cybertrucks.

In order to appease their grandmother, one Yik Yak user pulled the brilliant line, “Well no, but don’t worry, I’m not going to make you a great-grandma anytime soon.” To which she replied, “Well I suppose with you it won’t make a difference, I mean just look at you. For heaven’s sake take a shower!”

Can you believe what these girls are wearing nowadays?

Jessica’s great-grandmother asked her this while watching one of the Olympic women’s beach volleyball events.

Jessica is a country night fanatic. There’s nothing she likes more than throwing on her half-inch inseam jean shorts, plaid crop top and incredibly country pink cowboy hat while dancing to a Luke Combs song about pick-up trucks and beers.

Jessica explained that it was just for event performance, to which her grandmother commented that it wasn’t a surprise nobody cared about the men’s tournament.

Are you excited to start going to the clubs once you’re 21?

As far as I know, only one grandparent asked this question. And clearly, this grandparent does not realize Miami is… well… Miami.

Every good Miami student knows that there are major benefits to going to clubs after turning 21, so this student replied by saying, “Yah meemaw, I’m looking forward to finally going to the bars (cough *without cover fees* cough).”

“Maybe now you’ll get a girlfriend and stop using AI to generate pictures of President Crawford with hair,” Meemaw was quick to reply.

What was the whole email thing on the news?

From my conversations, it appears that about 69% of students who lived in Emerson Hall had to endure this question.

While most students didn’t have very interesting answers, there was one kid who told his grandma that it was “An educational experience that was kind of controversial.”

After his grandmother said she didn’t understand what could be so controversial, the kid told her that it was because they were talking about toys and the university used a definition that was out of the Urban Dictionary and not Merriam-Webster.

pateemj@miamioh.edu