The only reason I picked UBC was so my mom could say that I go to a Top 50 institution when she and her sisters are fighting over whose children are the most successful.
UBC’s ranking, according to Times Higher Education, has dropped from 37th to 40th worldwide. If it continues to decline at this rate, I’m going to get beat out by my cousin Kyler, an unlicensed makeup artist with a history of spreading pink eye.
I’m now tasked with finding a more elite institution that offers my super niche and obscure major (political science) — it has to be recognized enough that simply saying its name immediately makes any conversation about me.
Here are just a few of the reasons why UBC has gone from top to flop.
They just couldn't find the campus
I don’t know who comes up with these rankings. Maybe it’s a few guys with clipboards, or the All-Seeing Deity of Educational Institutions. Whoever it is, I’m going to assume that they just got lost so they couldn’t find the campus, let alone evaluate its delivery of Elite Educational Experiences (black-Calibri-on-white-text Powerpoint slides).
Given that we’re conveniently placed in the middle of nowhere, it’s highly possible that on the way over here, they took a wrong turn and ended up in the forests surrounding UBC (heart of Vancouver, my ass!) where they’re currently camped out with the international students who couldn’t find housing.
If getting to the campus wasn’t already hard enough, good luck actually finding your classes. You think that’s the Geography Building? Nope. Construction site. Since you even bothered to ask, we’ve now decided to tear down all the buildings and rebuild them in completely different locations. Fuck you.
Increase in campus squirrel-related injuries
Statistics show that within this past year, the amount of squirrel attacks on campus has risen by 85 per cent, with over half of them resulting in fatalities. From running people over with a skateboard to good ol’ stab wounds, the squirrels are getting creative with their torture tactics!
Not only do they glare menacingly anytime I have a bag of chips in my hand, clearly manipulating me into letting a tasty morsel slip from my fingers, but they’ve now turned to psychological warfare. One of them even tried to sign me up for a multi-level marketing company.
Refusal to change out stupid motto
Since the university’s first president was in power, UBC students have lived by the phrase Tuum Est (“It is yours,” for all the people who did not take LATN 101 as a GPA-booster).
This begs the question: What exactly is mine? Crippling student loan debt? Rampant food insecurity? Take it back! I don’t want it!
I think you know exactly what you need to do now. Here’s the University of Toronto transfer student guide. Happy trails!
The Dingbat is The Ubyssey's humour section. Send pitches and completed pitches to blog@ubyssey.ca.