University is a time of exploration.
From learning who you are to what you want to do with your life, the people you surround yourself with really make the time count for something — good or bad.
But UBC can suck, and it has definitely fucked over more people that you can count.
UBC is like a bad ex-boyfriend: impactful, annoying and super easy to make fun of.
The Nice Guy
This is the guy you started seeing during JumpStart.
He’s cool, kind and smart. He shows you everything that campus (or campus adjacent) has to offer, like one of the best nude beaches in the world and a big white box with a red ‘E’ on it.
Everything was all fun and games until midterms came around. You took off those rose-coloured glasses and realized that this guy isn’t all so great.
I mean, nobody is all 100 per cent good, but you realize that there is a lot of bad. Like he increased tuition during a pandemic, gave honorary degrees to too many problematic white men and is way too into fossil fuels.
And he wonders why girls never fall for nice guys.
Business-Savvy Bitch
All your friends hated this guy, and for good reason too! He’s smart, he wears a suit to class and he’s a little too into philanthropy, if you know what I mean.
But hey, this man knows how to get that coin. Sure, he takes money from university students and spends it on dumb shit like the shadow tree.
And sure he’s the devil — but at least the devil has a job. At least he’s stimulating the economy. What are you doing? Nothing! You’re complaining about your university-boyfriend charging you tuition. And well, you’re valid. Screw tuition!
This guy is a bitch.
A business-savvy one, though.
Gaslighty Asshole
You know the type. Liberal arts degree, only watches indie films without a plot and is never seen without a beanie (toque, my bad). He acts like he invented hand-rolling cigarettes — but he’s admittedly quite good at pumping smoke into the atmosphere.
Yeah, he only texts you when he wants your tuition money, or when he wants you to buy him something, or when he wants your tuition money, but he’s a good guy! He cares about you.
He told you that it’s a fair trade. With the money you give him, you get to take classes that suck the soul out of your body, leaving you a husk incapable of taking care of yourself until you go home and regress into your high school self for all four months of the summer. Then you do it all again! He’s the (second) best (school in Canada) and totally does not live to see your demise.
When you called him out on taking your money, leaving you with $14.57 in your account, he got mad at you. But it’s your own fault. You should have known that when you get into a long relationship with a post-secondary institution, you’ll be sucked dry.
It’s parasitism! I mean… it’s mutualism.
Sure, you might be in massive amounts of debt after he breaks up with you after you finish your 120 credits, but who knows! Five is the new four. Maybe you can change him.
That’s never not worked out for anyone before.
The Dingbat is The Ubyssey’s humour section. You can send pitches or completed pieces to blog@ubyssey.ca.