I am a 30 year old college student and I want to ask out my former professor. Classes concluded in May but I hired her as a tutor over the summer and we got to know each other pretty well. She is eight years older than me and I know that she is interested. I wanted to ask her out months ago but I decided to wait because I wanted to see if my feelings were real or if this was a crush that would go away on it's own. Students frequently get crushes on their professors and forget about them once the class has concluded. Since I had recently been a student of hers I was pretty sure she would be ethically obligated to say no anyway. She teaches lower level classes and I have tested out of those so there won't be any risk of me ending up in one of her classes again. I am not sure how to proceed. I feel a genuine connection to this person. We have had some of the most exciting and absorbing conversations of my entire life. I am not sure if it is appropriate for an instructor to date a former student. She plans on being at this school for a long time and I know she has to think about how this would look to her peers, I don't want her to be put in an uncomfortable position that could damage her future career plans. I am not an inexperieinced teenager, I don't act irrationally and I like to think that at this age I know what I want. What should I do? Ask her out? Or is this just too big of a potential mess that I am better off avoiding becoming entangled in? Any ideas?

I would look into the rules, perhaps in that particular school on dating students. I know that you have said that you will never be in her class again but there may be a rule against dating a student at the school, period. If there is no such rule then I think that it would be fair game to ask her out. If there is no rule regarding this that would make her lose her job then whether she considers it an ethical issue is totally up to her. Just because you ask her out does not mean that you are dating. If she is interested in you, and she decides to date you then that is her decision and you have no reason to feel guilty about it. You are both adults and if there is no professional/legal boundaries lying between the two of you dating, I don't see why you should hesitate. Good luck brother.

What if you ask her out then move to a different but closer school if she has a thing on you?

I don't see anything wrong with you asking her out on a date, as long as you are not longer her student. Having her as your private tutor does complicate things as well.

So it would be best to disassociate any student-teacher relationship before asking her out.

I think that there has to be some passage of time before it would be considered acceptable by the University.

If she was your professor in this recent semester, now passed, I doubt they would look kindly on that as it would appear as though there had been a relationship prior to the end of the course.

The course finished May 1st, but she has still been your teacher over the summer, as a tutor. This continuance of a teacher/student relationship that started sometime before May 1st, and has probably just finished, is too close for comfort in my opinion.

In my occupation, a relationship that develops from a counsellor/client relationship, cannot occur for a minimum of one year of the start of the counselling.

For her sake, I would encourage her to be very clear on the University protocols regarding this.