In trying to answer each of the above questions, we unfortunately can't ask every person in the population. Instead, we take a random sample from the population, and use the resulting sample to learn something about the population:

The population of interest for the first research question is all college students. Therefore, a random sample might consist of 1300 randomly selected students from all of the possible colleges in the United States. The population of interest for the second research question is a little narrower, namely only Penn State students. Therefore, a random sample might consist of, say, 300 randomly selected Penn State students.

Of course, the answers, or data, we get depend on who ends up in our random sample. We can't possibly predict the possible outcomes with certainty, but we can create a list of possible outcomes.