Link: https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1vgti35/i_think_i_just_jeopardized_my_classmates_degree/

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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 on 2026-08-06 04:00:07+00:00.

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/eekspiders

Originally posted to r/gradschool

I think I just jeopardized my classmate's degree

Editor’s note: I have permission to share OOP’s posts here

Original Post: July 29, 2026

We're in a communications master's program. My classmate needed one-on-one interviews for her project. The gist is she was looking at visual communication in fitness branding. She was recruiting athletes and I am one, so I thought why not.

It was a Zoom interview. I was one of her first three participants and I didn't know the other two so I couldn't ask anyone. Informed consent seemed fine and looked like any other consent form for our discipline without really any risk. She then started with some basic questions, all is well for about 15 minutes. Then she shows me a few variations of the same ad.

It was an ad for a GLP-1 product. Like those predatory knockoff Ozempic ads you'd see on TikTok with clearly problematic content. I did not receive any indication about the content from her or the consent form.

I sat through about 3 minutes of that, then she started asking me for my thoughts on the ads and whether I'd buy the product. I flat-out said I wouldn't. And she didn't like that. She kept prodding further, I guess trying to see what would get me to use it. Like questions about my habits and what I thought about my body and athletic performance and what I'd wanna fix. Things that a sports medicine or mental health researcher would ask, except they would at least have tact. This really got to me as someone who is currently struggling with a restrictive eating disorder on top of trying to do well in my sport. Besides, my university specializes in business and related disciplines only. We don't even have departments for healthcare, psychology, or anything remotely like that. Therefore, students would not have the clearance to do anything with that because there is no way to oversee it.

The interview ended really uncomfortably. For one-on-one interviews she needed around 10 people and two of them after me were gonna be my friend and her teammate, but they dropped out once I told them what happened, plus I withdrew my own responses so that's three gone. My classmate took to the big school WhatsApp groups basically begging for participants. I don't know if she got any, but she went from spamming to radio silent in a couple days.

I had emailed her supervisor right after my interview. He told me he's looking into it because that was not something he was aware of nor approved. That was three weeks ago, and apparently she was reviewed by the IRB (editor’s note: Institutional Review Board) and some other admin. I'm not sure what will happen to her, but from what I know of the policies she can't move forward with her dissertation and there will be academic misconduct charges.

I only met her once or twice before this and she seemed nice. And I'm sure she can easily figure out it was me who ratted her out to her supervisor. There's a real possibility she won't get her degree. I don't know. I just needed to get this off my chest.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: If her research was dangerous, don't feel guilty about what you did. Speaking to IRB and her supervisor and not letting your friends participate are good actions to take if you felt uncomfortable.

However, from how you framed her research, it seems the issue is unclear questions/research topic and a bad interviewing style. Based on what you said, I'd think a project examining how glp1s are currently targeting/affecting athletes is perfectly timely and necessary given how many people are now taking one and that your school is business oriented.

On the other hand, the whole point of consent is to warn you about the possible triggering topics and make sure you're comfortable. If you weren't, things should have stopped immediately.

A TON of research has to go back to the drawing board. If she can't get her ten this way in this time, and she wants to be a career long researcher, she'll figure out another line to explore.

OOP: I didn't email the IRB, just her supervisor. I also told my friend how it went for me honestly but didn't tell them what to do (it basically went "How'd it go?" "Not great, there was some uncomfortable body stuff" and then we moved on). She told her teammate and they dropped out themselves

Commenter 2: 👋hey, psychology PhD here who researches body image and eating disorder prevention. Looks like most of these comments are on the right track, but some are missing the point. Don't really want to get into the weeds here, but just wanted to give you some support that your instinct is correct, the informed consent was clearly missing crucial information, and the student needs more training on appropriate qualitative methodology. It was also appropriate to go to the supervisor and/or the IRB with concerns about research ethics violations. If they have to redo their project, it is not your fault. If anything I would have concerns about the level of supervision and training that they are getting, and while I would be concerned if a student was doing this, I would not blame them or try to prevent them from getting their degree unless there were other egregious issues. My first point of exploration would be where was this student misled or not guided enough.

As an aside, because I said I wouldn't get into the weeds too much 😅, I would actually be a bit concerned about your institutional IRBs ability to appropriately review projects related to mental health if there is not a psychology or related department as you mentioned. I am on my institution's IRB and very smart people from different fields often do not understand the research that we are doing and both under and overreact to projects related to mental health as a result. Hopefully they at least have consultants with that expertise?

Anyway, there are a lot of flags here and you should definitely not feel guilt for pointing them out.

OOP: They do overcorrect here too. Another person I know had to amend her dissertation topic because hers treaded slightly too close to mental health issues for the ethics committee to be comfortable greenlighting

Commenter 3: Am I the only one that thinks this is a wild overreaction on OPs part? You are all adults and the proper way to have handled this was interpersonally. Instead, you immediately began gossiping with classmates and ran to admin.

I’ve battled on and off with restrictive Eds (editor’s note: eating disorder). Never in a million years would I allow my own disorder to dictate the course of another person’s life.

It also sounds like this was for market research. You’re acting like she was going to personally be restraining you and injecting you with the GLP1 against your will.

Honestly, you owe this girl a massive apology and you should feel massively guilty over what you did. This subreddit is sometimes an echo chamber, but you messed up and let your own disease dictate someone else’s degree. Shame on you.

OOP:

1. I didn't gossip. My friend asked me, "How'd it go?" and I just gave her a one-sentence answer like "Not great, it got into some really uncomfortable body stuff" and then the conversation moved on. My friend just knows I have an ED, so she gets what I mean by "body stuff." I didn't tell her (nor her teammate) to drop out or do anything, I didn't know they would've
2. The consent form said if there were any issues to email the supervisor and provided his email. I did that. The email was just "Your student's study made me uncomfortable because XYZ, I just want to let you know in case you didn't." Trying to confront her could've opened up more risks without the structure of someone mediating
3. There are right and wrong ways to conduct market research. Fishing for an answer with invasive questions about personal health is not one. I've never taken part in market research where I was asked what I thought were my "problem areas"

Commenter 4: I’m just saying that it’s just as easy to say I’m not comfortable with this and leave it at that as it is to gently explain TO HER why certain populations may be adversely affected by her marketing. Instead, you went nuclear.

I’m not going to take part in an echo chamber that absolves you of any responsibility. You are an adult, you made your decisions, and now you get to deal with them.

Personally, if you were truly interested in helping the greater good, you could have educated her on why these marketing tactics may be harmful. You wouldn’t even have to reveal your ED. It was that simple.

Instead, you ran to your friends, alienated your cohort from her, alerted admin, and may have destroyed her chance at higher education. All of this because you were asked about a sensitive topic and couldn’t confront it in a direct way…

OOP: Where did you get that I alienated our cohort? As far as I know nobody else knows about it and most of the people I talk to are in my sports club and from different departments anyway, which I didn't bring it up to

Also, researchers are supposed to warn people about sensitive topics in the consent form. I had to because my dissertation touches on ...

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Also, researchers are supposed to warn people about sensitive topics in the consent form. I had to because my dissertation touches on politics. She did not give any warning or indications

Commenter 5: Yes, researchers should warn people, but was that actually your concern? You went nuclear rather than confronting her directly like an adult would.

It would have been far easier to just educate her on why this topic may be sensitive for some. As you stated, you stonewalled her while she was asking questions to try and figure out what went wrong.

It’s wild to me that you are comparing her being inquisitive during MARKET RESEARCH to being a mental health researcher. That’s akin to labeling me a neurosurgeon then reporting me because part of my nursing assessment is to document pupil size.

OOP: What kind of market research asks you what you think your "problem" areas are physically? Or asks if you've ever restricted or felt bad about weight gain? Things similar to what my doctor asked me when assessing for an eating disorder?

The ethics systems are in place, and her supervisor's name was on the consent form for a reason and it's to prevent the issues that come with the power dynamic between researchers and participants as well as provide a conflict mediator. It's not on me, a person who is not an instructor and very much not equipped to have that conversation, to confront her. Contacting her supervisor is not "going nuclear" when that's what I was told I could do in the consent process

OOP on clarifying what questions his classmate was asking that triggered the ED.

OOP: She asked me what I thought the "problem areas" of my body were, if I ever tried restricting food beyond normal dieting, if I ever felt bad about gaining weight. Nothing about the consent form indicated we'd talk about this. I didn't know it'd be a GLP-1 either because the product itself wasn't specified, though GLP-1s themselves don't bother me because I don't have any experience with them. It was the questions and setup around it that made me uncomfortable and I kinda just hastily nudged it to end early. I then just emailed her supervisor like "Hey your student did this and it was uncomfortable, just giving you a heads up."

It was a general lack of awareness and tact in the questions. My school's ethics committee doesn't really have the ability to approve topics that would broach into sensitive stuff like mental health because we're solely a business school. Admittedly I was more focused on getting myself out of that encounter at the time, but even if the demographic was people losing weight there are better ways to interview about it (if anything weight loss requires even more sensitivity than just sports)

My guess at this point is she probably won't get kicked out or anything, but as of right now she's still not trying to recruit through our WhatsApp channels or saying anything that I know of so I assume the project's been put on hiatus.

Update: July 30, 2026 (next day)

I didn't think I'd be one of those posters with an update but here we are.

Overall, her degree is safe.

A few days before my first post she actually created an Instagram group chat with me and the two participants before me. I didn't see it before because we don't follow each other and Instagram hides messages from people I haven't added.

She gave a general apology, thanked us for participating, and told that since the study won't be continuing she's discarding the data and to let her know if we needed anything (I had withdrawn mine already, this was moreso the other two). She also said she's picking a different dissertation topic from scratch and if we're around next term, she'd still love our insight because she's still sticking to the fitness/sports sector. Pretty sure she'll have to pick a different supervisor because it's open knowledge that her current one is going on sabbatical next term, but if she's doing advertising/marketing we have an abundance of faculty for that. I won't be around personally—graduation, new job, etc. Like the other two participants, I thanked her for her apology and wished her all the best.

That's pretty much it.

To clarify because my last post drew some confusion:

We were taught that participants should not confront the researcher directly if there's an issue and should contact supervisors/IRB. This is because of the power dynamic, potential for social retaliation, and just the messiness and liabilities it creates for the school.

I didn't to go the IRB. I sent a quick email to her supervisor a simple "Hey heads up your student did this and it was uncomfortable." I don't know how deeply they reviewed her research or the chain of command or whatnot, but regardless she's still gonna get her degree eventually.

I didn't encourage my friend nor my friend's teammate to pull out. My friend just asked me how was it the day after it happened and I just said, "Not great, there was some uncomfortable body stuff" and left the conversation at that (she's aware of the eating disorder). She told her teammate later on and they dropped out of their volition. Some folks here got the impression that I went around gossiping to our cohort but most of the people I talk to are from my sports club studying in completely different departments and I didn't bring it up to anyone other than that one friend, the supervisor, and my girlfriend.

The GLP-1 ad didn't bother me because I don't have any experience or associations with them. But some of the probing questions she asked were things like what I thought the "problem areas" were on my body, if I ever restricted or did anything outside normal dieting, if I ever felt bad about weight gain, etc. The latter two were similar to what my doctor asked when I was being assessed for an eating disorder, so these questions and a general lack of tact (probably out of ignorance) raised flags because we don't have the oversight structures in place for sensitive medical or mental health research questions. And of course there's the issue of it not being in the consent form.

Also thank you to the person who DM'd me and gave me advice about the ED as an athlete in particular. I had only started seeing a doctor recently and never dealt with anything like this before so it's all new and hard to talk about, and I think the study compounded the stress. I finally worked up the courage to text my coach about it this morning. The good thing is martial arts is largely individual so I don't have to worry about pushing myself beyond what I can to support a team. He and I are meeting up before training tomorrow to come up with a tailored plan. My girlfriend is a gym rat so she's been helping me on the meal planning side of it. I'm so grateful I have them. Fingers crossed I beat this.

Relevant / Top Comments

Commenter 1: I'm so glad you're getting support! My upcoming project has to do with consumption & I'm planning on doing some interviews and I'd be mortified if anything I said ended up hurting one of my interviewees.

Hope this doesn't come off intrusive, but if you want to access any support resources outside of your university, Eating Disorders Anonymous have some good & free resources, including in person (mostly in the US, I believe) and zoom meetings.

OOP: I'm actually in the UK, but I'll still look into it on the off chance they do anything here. So far I've just been seeing a dietician and talk therapist

Commenter 2: I do social science research in the USA. If she is also in the USA and went through an IRB (there are some cases where advertising type work doesn’t need IRB approval, but I’m not in that field so I don’t know the specifics), the questions she asked about “problem areas” would have had to be approved specifically, and the consent forms would have had to include information that the risks include discomfort due to talking about one’s body image and weight. If she asked those questions without IRB approval, you could have reported to the IRB, not just her advisor, and good on her advisor for stepping in.

Her messaging you all as a group on Instagram also violated your privacy (since you were able to see who else was in the study), and is something that you could report to the IRB.

You didn’t do this to your classmate, she is facing the right and proper consequences of violating the ethics of human subjects research. Or I’d argue, she’s facing less than she could or maybe even should have.

OOP: I'm originally from the US so I'm familiar with that ethics training from prior work experience but I'm studying in the UK

Commenter 3: Is the Instagram group chat also not breaking irb? I can't imagine it's okay for her to reveal who the other participants were, even if the study she was going to do is not defunct. Jeez!

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

This is some really complicated stuff and I cant tell from comments if op did the right thing or overreacted.

Reddit comments for this post are solidly pro op

OOP actually potentially saved her academic and professional career by reporting this and it becoming a learning opportunity for her so she doesn't fuck up this hard again (tho her making that WhatsApp group which violates IRB again mayyyyybe means she's beyond help lol)

[–]Sweaty_Average4525

OOP saved her from a much worse disaster down the line. The group chat proves she still needs supervision though.

Another comment:

She shouldn’t have been allowed to get that far without her advisor stepping in. They should have looked over a copy of her consent forms and a sample questionnaire and let her know that she didn’t meet IRB guidelines. She also should have looked into IRB requirements herself to make sure everything was aboveboard - even as a Master’s student.

If anything, OOP may have saved her some time by alerting her advisor before she put too much work in. I don’t think the IRB would let her keep the data she gathered using the default no-risk consent forms, even if she wanted to.

Comment on review process

I’ve done this kind of work. Review and oversight of the questions/approach/etc is ALWAYS required. There are categories which don’t require IRB approval (e.g. talking to a professional about their job), but you still have to put together a package saying “here is my plan and it doesn’t need IRB approval” and then they look at it and decide if they agree. It is WILD that the student got this far with so little oversight.

All the commenters saying “you went too far” “you should have talked to her”, just don’t get it. She can’t change her methodology from one interview to the next without invalidating her study. And if she never got IRB approval (which seems likely), it’s a kindness to her to let her supervisor know now. Think how awful it would be if she completed the interviews, wrote her dissertation, and THEN her committee uncovered this mess! She’d still have to scrap everything she did and she might even find herself in trouble for messing up work with human subjects so badly.