I suck at conversation. I can talk a bit to get the girl talking but I can't do much more than that. It's not that I don't have a lot of things to talk about. I just don't have a lot of things to talk about that are decent conversation pieces.

I've had a pretty hot girl turn down a third date. A THIRD DATE! All because she said she didn't understand what I was talking about. The problem is, I love my major and the project I'm working on is amazing. I'm building using ultrasound to build a medical imaging device to scan the brain. I love all the circuit analysis I do to make the system and integrating what I learned in class to build a PCB to make this thing work. I also love my dynamic system class and learning to model feedback systems with control devices. It's just really interesting to me.

Unfortunately that's what I talk about. My friends, and my team mates on my project. 80% of the time we talk about professors, hw, and the stuff we learn in class. I watch some not so popular anime, have learned japanese and picking up spanish but those aren't conversation topics for your average girls. I write novels, working on my 3rd next month but it's more of a bragging piece then something I can really delve into without being awkward.

Any advice on how to talk to the general population?

1st, stop calling them the general population.

I get where you're coming from, I really do. But the 1st thing you have to realize is not every girl/person is going to adore your hobbies. It's great that you have something you're passionate about, it creates interest, but that's not all you need. You need to do ATTRACTIVE things. Interest is good for getting a date, but once you're dating, you need to focus on actually attracting her and pushing her 'love' buttons.

Go brush up on escalation and building attraction. Like I said earlier, being interesting isn't enough. It helps a ton, but i'll pay you 1 million when a girl hops into bed with you because of your project you're working on. (Unless it's a everlasting-vibrating dildo, then that doesn't count)

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Two words: Carpe Diem

One thing that has helped me was trying to become more interesting, by taking an interest in interesting things.

Meditation and Lucid Dreaming are two things I am into that girls just love talking about. Hot girls. I don't know why, but girls are really into spirituality and that kind of thing. This alone will not get you laid of course, but it is something to revert back to if you have nothing else to talk about.

Are you using Mystery Method canned material? Canned material can fuck with your natural ability to converse.

Get to know what is happening in pop culture. It's called pop culture for a reason; it's popular. This will give you lots of things to talk about, movies, music, politics, global issues, social issues, television etc.

Women tend to be more emotional creatures, so instead of trying to explain the intricacies of how complex systems work, you are probably better off asking her something more emotionally orientated.

What movies make you cry?
Best breakup song?
Her feel good hangover movie?
What does she do for Christmas?
Her celebrity death list for 2013/14 (this one is always fun in large groups)

Another important part of any conversation is listening skills. Show her that you are listening by asking questions that build from the things that she has already said - that way you can flesh out topics. Just get her talking and try to keep her talking, and eventually she will feel more and more comfortable around you.

Fuck all the logistics.
Just be interested in the other person and relate.
I went from not being able to hold conversations with friends to engaging groups in conversations.
Be genuinely curious and if you don't understand say so.
This may not be the answer you're looking for but if you're thinking left and right about what makes a conversation flow you won't get anywhere. Just stay tuned in, and every now and then throw in a story. After you're comfortable throw in a story that has to do with the topic and stay fun and easygoing.
Eventually you can alter your conversational style to easy sexual transitions or whatever else.

Stay in reality. conversations literally flow by themselves UNLESS you're spending the whole time acknowledging them.

I don't think you should necessarily go out and start "becoming interested" in things which you don't really find interesting currently, just so you can chat to a woman.

Talk about what you find interesting and then take an interest in what she finds interesting. You don't need to be the one doing the interesting talking. Ask about her day and her interests. If it's a topic you know a lot or even a bit about, then add your opinion. If it's something you know nothing about, then really take an interest in it. I can remember chatting to one girl who was quite boring but then let slip that she did BMX. Now I couldn't even ride a bike until I was 12 so I'm not massively into BMX, but I asked her a load of questions about it, and various different 'strands' then came up. For instance, she told me about the time she hadn't put the safety plugs into the handlebars properly (my understanding is still a bit sketchy I'm afraid!) and she then fell off and ended up stabbing herself with her handlebar, went clean through her side. Had it been a couple of inches further left she could have ended up doing all sorts of internal damage to organs. So that was pretty cool and we chatted about horrible injuries and stuff like that - perhaps not a great topic to get on to over a drink in a club though!! Then from there we naturally moved on to football, as that is the sport I play and have seen/had some bad injuries, we talked about the team I support - and then found out her parents are originally from the same town. So we then chatted about that town.

You see when you ask questions, some of the answers won't really interest you all that much. But if you pursue that line of enquiry - ask her more about her uninteresting interest - then eventually something will come up which you can move the topic on to.

And if you don't eventually find something interesting in common to talk about, then I'd just not bother with the girl. Far more important things in life than wasting time on someone who's boring!

Yeah you need to find stuff that she likes and not really your interests. Girls like to talk about themselves so do the conversation in relation to her likes and interests. Like I don't talk about plants, cattle grazing, and rangelands which is my area of study at school with every girl I meet unless she has that background or interest in it. ie a girl from one of my classes I took her on a hike as a date and we id'ed plants and talked about outdoors stuff because we both share an interest with it. Yes I did get in bed with her, but that is not going to work with every girl. So basically base it off her and if you share an interest with her, then thats what you should converse with.

I don't often meet many girls who have much interests of their own. I know one too many girls with passion for hunting due to living in the midwest. I've tried to be interested but they know I'm faking haha. Maybe the lack of facial hair and camouflage lol.

I prefer more active girls who are willing to have fun but often times I end up talking to a girl who likes watching TV and working out and they aren't very passionate about it. Or at the very least, not with me. So I end up bringing my interests in to keep the conversation going. I don't use canned material. I understand the concept behind the mystery method and all of the other pick up material. I just kinda wing it because it's easier but preferably I go for a lovable kid next door feel. I don't try negging, or being witty. With my experience in writing and offensive jokes I've offended one too many girls back in highschool to try that again lol.

7000, you have a good point though. I'm not an average guy, I'll get to literally travel the world making money due to my smarts and finding a girls who can take me for who I am, is pretty important.

try to learn how to bullshit, instead of focusing on the good thing to say or something to keep it going, just focus on a good feeling and bring that to the conversation with completely irreverent things, you can switch back and fourth between serious discussion and nonsense, but when you are bored and it's getting boring just entertain yourself with the nonsensical and give her an opportunity to hold some conversation even if it's at the cost of some awkward silence, she will feel that awkward ''this isn't going good'' feeling also, give her a bit of the responsibility too just help her get some ideas and make her feel at ease with it and shut up for a bit and she will probably open up and talk either telling her stories or asking your questions

you can also introduce multiple topics at once and keep not elaborating on the topics so it seems there is more to talk about just keep bringing up thing after thing briefly and she may return to a topic that is somewhat interesting to her