Useful Links Around Campus

Summer is drawing to an end and I had a fabulous year here on the Blogsquad. A shoutout to my fellow bloggers and Humaira: you guys made the experience awesome! This may be my last post as my “tenure” here draws to an end. Feel free to comment on all the old posts – I check them regularly!

Here’s a batch of links I’ve bookmarked over the months that were helpful. Hope it helps you in some way or another.

Best Places to Nap on the UBC Campus – an awesome list for the sleepier ones amongst us, compiled by Humaira

Grade Distribution and Curves for UBC Classes – this is an absolute GOLDMINE. You can check all the grades for past classes here. This is as reliable as you can get! You will never have to wonder whether a prof is easy or not or how many A’s he or she hands out! It gives highest, lowest, passing rate, average, total attendance etc.

UBC Rate My Profs – y’all should know this already. Take every comment here about profs with a grain of salt!

UBC LEAP – “We Help You Learn” is the perfect for LEAP (Learning Enhancement Academic Partnership Program). This huge site has everything you need for academic survival and beyond. Check it out! On a sidenote, I actually worked on part of the site with the awesome folks over at Student Development and the Office of Learning Technology for the majority of the summer!

An Ancient Guide to Climbing Almost Every Building on the UBC Campus – Caution: try at your own risk. I thought this was hilarious.

The Ubyssey – our official newspaper! Lookin’ gorgeous after a makeover this summer. Keep up-to-date with campus news.

UBC Blogsquad – of course 😀 Don’t forget everyone in my blogroll!

I wish everyone an exciting and fruitful school year. Keep in touch.

Truth: My Love for UBC and How I Got Here

This entry has been a long time coming.

It makes me kind of sad that I don’t have a single photo from my high school graduation ceremony.  You know those ones, where everyone is dressed in oversized, red-rimmed black gowns with somewhat forceful grins on their faces? And then there is some blurry shot of a figure walking across a dark stage? Nope, not me. In fact, I didn’t even attend this fabled important rite of passage. At the time, I was on a plane to Beijing, with the plan of coming back to Vancouver ASAP and spending as much time as possible during the the summer working to pay for a $40 000 per year tuition.

So I guess I should start my story at the beginning.

UBC was not my first choice university. For a brief time in junior year, the basement of Koerner became my second home as I toiled over a thesis paper. During the last few years of high school, I had the “fortune” of riding the 480 bus, where I vowed to never become one of the tired-looking university students spending two hours on commuting every day. UBC was too familiar, too local, too easy to get in (I know, I’m sorry). The “been there, done that” feeling was overwhelming.  In April 2008, I promptly submitted both my Statement of Intent to Register and housing deposit to a fine university on the west coast of the United States. Sunny California was calling my name and I prepared to bid farewell to rainy Vancouver.

Three months later, after I had gotten my dorm room number and planned cost-effective ways of getting to Cali by train, I threw it all away. Multiple banks turned down my loan applications. My parents shook their heads soberly: they simply couldn’t afford it. That day in August when I gave up the US school and decided to attend UBC instead, I cried – both out of frustration and relief. On one hand, I finally have a definite future, one involving one of best-regarded universities in this country where I knew what to expect in terms of academics, involvement, and expenses. On the other hand, why should I be restricted in my education by finances? Why should I be bereft of the opportunity I earned by merit, when other people had trust funds, RESPs, rich relatives, and parents with savings? What was so fundamentally wrong with me that private universities with financial aid turned me down? It is with these unanswered, unanswerable questions that I came to UBC.

I won’t lie. Despite all the wonderful things that were going on in my life, the best way to describe the first few months of my university career would be  “mundane and trivial”.  School was neither intellectually-stimulating nor particularly challenging. Some of my profs cared, some didn’t. I still worked two to three jobs, was dead tired half the time, and yearned to sleep in on Sunday morning.

Some where along the way, things changed. UBC took its hold on me. I lived and breathed Sauder and started to love every single moment of my time here. I met a supportive group of friends, peers, staff members, faculty etc.  They say university is where you meet your best friends for life, and it’s absolutely true. In addition, I had – and still have – numerous opportunities to observe how things work behind the scenes in this great institution. I appreciate and vividly remember every single elusive moment that left a happy impression on me. Four years of post-secondary eduction in the grand scheme of things is a mere instant. I intend to treasure my time at UBC, no matter how brief or intermittent.

I love UBC. I love it for the humbleness with which it presents itself to the world. I love it for the opportunities it gives to people like me to blog at our hearts’ desire. I love it for its glorious achievements on the world stage of academia. I love it in all its imperfections and idiosyncracies.

Ten years down the road, no matter where I am, I will always remember how UBC as an institution and as a collective of talented minds young and old changed my outlooks on life forever.

How to Make Money at UBC – Part 2

Click to view the first segment: How to Make Money at UBC Part 1.

6. Scholarships

Profitability: UBC has a curious tendencies of drastically downsizing the scholarship amounts after luring us in Freshman year. If you didn’t struck gold with the $20 000+ Major Entrance Scholarships, you’ll have to “make do” with mere $500 – $4000 scholarships for the next few years.

Time: The great things about some university scholarships is that you don’t even have to apply – they come straight to your mailbox thanks to a faculty committee handing them out. Others might require application forms and reference letters.

Skills/Difficulty: Not top in your class? Not to worry, you get something even if you’re second sometimes! Woot! Sarcasm aside, there is a bit of competition for grades and whatnot but we all know the atmosphere at UBC isn’t as cutthroat as those of MIT or Berkeley. So try your best kids.

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Cream of the Crop as Shown by Google

I have faith that the readers of UBC blogs like mine are the cream of the crop of the student population here at this lovely university (slight sarcasm intended). As to how you guys got here, some were via Twitter, Facebook, my email signature, and a plethora of places filled shameless self-promotion; while others found it through search engines like Google. I’m quite happy that I come up first when I search “Phoebe Yu”, but what keywords did other people search to get to this blog? Some had mindnumbing questions, others were just curious. I will try my best to appease such curiosities. Much thanks to Google Analytics for stat tracking.

Bring on the keywords!

480 ubc runs on weekends
No, it doesn’t. You’ll have to take the 98 B-Line and then the 25/41/49/99 bus.

phoebe yu birthday
I’m flattered you’re trying to find someone’s birthday on Google, wait, on Google, seriously?!

chinese girls ubc commerce
Umm… *gulp*. There are a lot of us here… but we’re not sure if we want YOU here…

at ubc we like them yong [sic]
-Disturbed- (this is actually a line from a Sauder Frosh cheer, haha you’ll see)

mean things to do to someone to get them back

  1. Tell them to Google stupid things
  2. Get that featured on a blog

Oh wait, you just did that. Cream of the crop indeed.

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You Asked, I Answer

If you had to make 7 things mandatory for each first year at UBC to do, what would they be? – Matt Corker

Excellent, excellent question Matt. Here it is in brief and I will expand this into a blog post one day.

1. Attend the Pep Rally on Imagine Day and cheer your heart out
2. Join a club, council, or association on campus (shameless promotion: International Business Club, for example)
3. Take a interest in the AMS candidates and vote in the AMS election
4. Take advantage of free swimming at the aquatic center
5. Visit the Rose Garden and trek down to Wreck Beach
6. Read the Ubyssey (optional: and comment on UBC Years and all the lovely people on the Blogsquad :D)
7. Visit all of your TAs and Profs during office hours, at least once; bonus points if you discuss non-homework related topics

Seven items are so short! The Ubyssey also published a 90 Things to do Before You Graduate UBC back in September, check it out, doing all of them might not be recommended hehe.

What’s the meaning of life? – Krys

42.

What was the lowest moment of your life, and how did you get out of there? – Lisa

Is this supposed to be one of those deep, thought-provoking, soul-searching questions that uncovers the mask I have been hiding behind, only to unveil behind it a hapless kindred spirit toiling without rewards? Of course not! The lowest moment of my life was probably when I went on a trip to Alberta and we went deep inside this cave that was at least a few hundred meters below sea level. I got out of there by taking a mining cart with the rest of the tourist group.

Where did you encounter the word “loquacious” and what does it mean? – Jason Yang

Easy question Jason, thank goodness! I encountered “loquacious” in my SAT prep days (remember those? haha). It means being excessively verbose or chatty, much like this blog.

What/who inspires you the most in life? – Travis

Of course it’s you, Travis. Other than my hardworking VP Finance, I am inspired by one particular quality: selflessness. To give up wealth or your own emotional well-being to service others is truly admirable. I’m also inspired by people who have overcome significant challenges to come out a new and better person.

How much sleep do you get every night? – Tysune

Usually between 5 and 6.5 hours. 9 hours on weekends. I feel bad now. Eastwood is going to come and tell me what up!

How much actual studying do you do during the school year on a usual day? – Tysune

Haha oh dear. I think about 90 minutes max, and then cramming before a due date.

Thank you for all your lovely questions! I picked and chose seven because that seemed to be the number we’re working with today. I encourage you bloggers out there to all take a narcissistic moment and have people ask your questions!