(Dis)connection is a column written by Life and Connection Columnist Josh Peng about isolation and student experience on campus. It delves into the social life of being a student and the cultural, economic and social realities felt by this generation.
Josh Peng is an honours student in the department of sociology. He is also staff writer for Spheres of Influence. Throughout his years at UBC, he has completed several qualitative research quests on community cohesion and been involved with the UBC Student Recovery Community and UBC Psychedelic Society.
Do your peers ever oddly feel like not just fellow students or even friends? Kind of like co-workers sometimes? It's a little awkward to even say peers, however at the University of British Columbia it feels like the most abysmally accurate term to use.
I’m not trying to say you don’t have any real friends (although you might not). It's just that the atmosphere most days at UBC as a student feels rather tense. There’s always something we should be studying for, something we should be doing for free or figuring out how to get eventually paid to do stuff. Or remembering something; “When can I do laundry?” or “When am I gonna hit up the person who said ‘We should hang out sometime?’” And that all might make it hard to give a better reply than “Good, okay see you!”
University gets really busy for pretty much most of the year. At the same time, wrapping one’s head around enjoying the journey as opposed to the destination is quite simple. “Be present,” kind of thing. Almost everyone who has been 19 has had experiences to confirm this cliché. So, why is it so hard to stop feeling like you need to lock in? No doubt, some high school teacher, wise adult or media figure imparted this on you: ‘College is where you really find yourself.’ I “find myself” worried about what time I should go to sleep on Wednesday.
If only we could all achieve the balance of going to a party or promising-sounding event every week. Hell, it wouldn’t even need to be on Friday or the weekend. Being out until 1 a.m. on Tuesday cannot possibly impact my average that badly, can it? However, I think UBC students find themselves alone very often and question whether or not that is a choice.
Vancouver as a city suffers from the stigma about it being extremely boring. The moniker “No Fun City” has had its claim on Vancouver on its Wikipedia page since 2012. It comes from how there seems to be nothing fun to do, a lacklustre arts scene, mediocrely populated venues and bland clubs. “Dude, its way better in Toronto!”
There’s an association with university being a means to an end for many hardworking students. As UBC students, statistically, we have relatively good employment prospects after getting our degrees, even though the grind doesn’t stop after graduating. People just want to get into law school, med school or an entry-level position at a nice company.
But the idea of doubling down on working hard because there’s nothing fun to do actually sounds miserable. On some level, it's neglecting what life really is.
It's totally understandable that there’s enormous temptation to succeed (or even supersede the majority of students in your program). You’re guaranteeing your future. You could be securing a co-op placement to afford rent. Maybe it's for the best to prioritize the grind. Because, it doesn’t take long for UBC students to realize this isn’t much of a party school (first-year toga party officially capped those gregarious desires for me). Aiming to get on track for a stable career, and make your close and loved ones proud is a good thing. After all, we’re an internationally renowned university with tons of international students, situated in groves of migrant culture with triumphant and faithful recourse toward higher education and economic doorways. There's a high likelihood for it to feel rigorous and competitive.
But does it feel rewarding?
The concerned and renowned Vancouver-based author Dr. Gabor Maté has warned the public carefully about hustle culture. Maté is popularly understood as being anti-burnout and pro-connection. When individual needs and goals feel heavier than the group around you, we get to see unhealthy competition or rivalry (he teaches). This can bleed narcissism, lack of empathy, the corrosion of boundaries and negative psychological states. This phenomena happens on scales of late-stage capitalism to the plane-crash desert island.
I’ve had more than several conversations about how people feel wildly incompetent compared to their “peers," even though they maintained “A” averages in high school and are perceived as diligent. Those can sometimes be accompanied by sad and thought-provoking stories about failure at the university or sharp encounters with mental health. There are numerous opportunities here to grow your self-concept and become stronger — but which academic weapons being crafted actually are a dull scythe?
When I had grown up in Canada, there was always an assumption that university or college was going to be a much bigger social riot with or without parties. At some point, my mind thought that if I went to college somewhere like in the US, I would've honed my extroverted personality more.
It's possible to explain this local antisocial-ness as related to Canadian culture. Not through hockey, thinking everybody is nice or that it's cold, stuff’s expensive and “my family owns a cabin in Osoyoos." It's through a common notion you probably have been exposed to: Vancouver is a multicultural monolith. Through Canada’s history with migration, colonization and settlement, there would in theory be plenty of opportunities to be exposed to cultural variety.
Those opportunities of cultural delight would surely meet at UBC: an intersection of youth, education, open ideas and schooling. Technically, we could all be getting along whilst weaving in and out of our traditions — you could be going to your Asian friend’s parents' house and coming up with modern twists on Chinese New Year, right? If that hasn’t happened to you, I get it, Richmond is really far by transit and — wait, oh, you drive.
I met a person who was sitting outside IKB with a whiteboard which read. “We need to think about what our goals are as a generation." It to some effect said that the social encounter here sucks and we’re making it that way. Vancouverites are cold, just like UBC students. There was somebody else hovering around the sign too, and together we triple-intellectualized our loneliness and anxiety until we were bored (after 20-so minutes).
I got his Instagram and said we could keep in touch. That was over four months ago, and I messaged him for the first time this month because I forgot what he wrote on his sign and wanted to remember so I could phrase it in this article.
Disconnection can be connected to many interesting dimensions of place, culture, economics, and weird niche social truths. Still, it’s a sad mysterious experience to be starving for more friendships, 8/10 small talk and as many awesome memories at UBC that you could come away with. All the while, in this experience, someone is finding it weird to smile upon eye contact with their group project partner from 2023.
So, where is everybody? Right in front of you. I just don’t feel like saying ‘hi’ right now.
This is an opinion article. It reflects the contributor's views and does not reflect the views of The Ubyssey as a whole. Contribute to the conversation by visiting ubyssey.ca/pages/submit-an-opinion.
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