“Asking Stanford” is a series of small stories from Stanford students, each of which comes together to highlight the diversity of experiences and perspectives on campus.

Campus squirrels

Way back when I could call myself a runner, I’d encounter lots of squirrels on my morning runs. Squirrels. Of all things. Really? In my defense, I think it’s the fault of “Old Yeller”; that book got me convinced that I could get rabies from touching anything that a rodent touched, or worse, getting bitten by a rodent (truly dreadful). I would always pass them slowly for fear they’d jump out and decide to bite me with as much drama as vampires do. — Dan Kubota

Running over a squirrel biking on campus. The cute little ones that can’t decide if they’re going to continue crossing the road or turn back when they see a biker approaching at 15 miles an hour. What do you do if you hit a squirrel? Bury it? Report it? Leave it there? I’m just hoping to never find out. — Sharis Hsu

Parenthood

The prospect of giving birth. Not really an irrational fear given the current state of women’s reproductive healthcare, but the idea of losing my life as I bring a new one into the world makes me unbearably sad. — Jennifer Levine

Everything under the umbrella of “not being able to have a child.” So: infertility, financial instability, romantic failures, health issues, you get the idea. It’s not like I’m planning on becoming a mother right now, so maybe my actual fear is the impending doom of derailed future plans. — Erin Ye

Fatherhood (not necessarily biological). I don’t know how I’d navigate the daunting task of instilling good values into another human being. If I raise a son, will he end up being a good man? I’m several years away from even considering fatherhood, but it hits deeply whenever it comes to mind. Could my most consequential decision be raising someone who turns out to be a source of trauma for someone else? — Sebastian Strawser

Too little and too much space

Elevators. And mainly the idea of getting stuck in them. The fear is not rooted in being trapped in a tight space, but rather being trapped in a space at all (specifically in the emptied shaft of a building where my voice becomes meaningless and I could easily fall to my death). — Chase Klavon

Being suffocated/crushed to death by a crowd. I am not even five feet tall, and I have always overheated really easily, so whenever I am in a crowd and it starts getting warmer, I always think the crowd is going to crush me before I’ll be able to get help. — Noa Karidi

The feeling you get when you’re in a large body of water and you stretch yourself way down… but the bottom is nowhere to be found. That feeling right there. Extra points if you can’t see the bottom either. — Linden Hansen

The not-so-irrational

I have trypophobia, which I personally think is a pretty rational fear, although, unfortunately, even looking at cells under microscopes freaks me out. But I distinctly remember bringing it up to someone in middle school who had never heard of it and thought it was very irrational. He searched up “trypophobia images” in art class and chased me around with his phone until I hid under a table. — Kristine Ma

Peanuts… or Reece’s, Snickers, Butterfingers, you name it. The first (and hopefully last) time I entered anaphylactic shock was Halloween night as a six-year-old. Suffice to say, I’m now armed with up to three epipens at any one time — and I certainly don’t accept candy from strangers! — Helen Katz