Conversations with and among students in their residential environment illuminate the role of peer subcultures in shaping what students learn and how they define learning. An excerpt from a year-long ethnographic case study examines the ways in which residents of an undergraduate women's residential unit at a state comprehensive university talk about academic activity. It illustrates how female students talk about learning and speculates about the interaction between that talk and their curricular experiences. Two themes which emerged from the data are highlighted: (1) a shared sense of personal cost-benefit analysis by which women residents set limits on the expenditure of time and energy for academic pursuits; and (2) taboos which constrain conversations with co-residents about intellectual topics or curricular content. Contains 35 references. (TS)