SFU Burnaby’s first honest tour script

Written by: Nathaniel Tok, Peak Associate

Remember when you were in your first year staring in wonder at the trash in the reflecting pond as a cheerful tour guide made an obligatory canned joke about illicit activities in the avocado?  Well, now you’re in your sixth year, and the magic is gone, just like the guy you bought your faulty online Mastering Economics password from.

Meanwhile, your parents’ neighbour’s niece’s dog walker is entering SFU to do pre-med/business law with a concentration in Big Data Bioinformatics. Now he wants you to show him around because he missed his official I Am SFU orientation tour.

If you’re ever forced into the position of impromptu tour guide, remember to tell the good and the bad. For example, though SFU has no human nightlife, we do have a telescope to see nightlife in the sky. And the biggest thing to keep in mind? It’s not your job to make these kids depressed; that’s what grade releases are for.

At Student Central:

Welcome to the unofficial SFU tour, kiddo! This is actually the same place that the real SFU tour begins, so you know I am semi-legit.

So, this is Student Central.  In complete honesty, I have no clue what happens in this building. I just come here for microwaves on the second floor, aside from the one time I went to beg the SFU doctor on the floor below for a doctor’s note. I had missed my final because I went to the wrong room. Oops!

Speed-walking past WAC:

Opposite Student Central is SFU’s largest library! W.A.C. Bennett Library—what does it stand for? Fuck, I don’t know, who do you think I am?

Look, after six years at SFU, I still have yet to experience one hour of genuine studying at that place. But if you ever want the rush of the illusion of productivity, pack up every single highlighter and notebook you own and sit at a desk on the 6th floor.

Distasteful gesture towards the SUB

Here is the incomplete Student Union Building. My friends have a bet to see who will be finished here first, me or the SUB!

That was a joke. You’ll understand soon enough. Oh, what’s that? You’re finishing your double major in three years? Yes, great, good for you.

Enter the Academic Quadrangle

Our famous AQ. No, it is not a prison, it only looks like one.

Now if you’ll look to your right, you’ll see one of our biggest lecture halls, C9001. In a marvel of architectural engineering, SFU has managed to cramp the equivalent occupational capacity of a jumbo jet into a room the size of two single-family homes. Also like a jumbo jet, space is at a premium, and you’ll have to trip over everyone when leaving your seat to get out to find a washroom.

At least the AQ has sheltered walkways to every other building in SFU! Be sure to tell your UBC friends that when they talk about how good UBC is.

Take a left to RCB Hall:

Welcome to the home of all the disciplines that SFU didn’t know where to place. If you cannot see any further than one metre ahead of you, there is a reason. The RCB Hall is a visual representation of your second and third year at SFU when you feel lost. Your way forward is dark, and every so often you end up walking into a different major.

Did you like that? Did you enjoy that joke? It was pretty clever… OK.

Here is also where I leave you, as the doors at the end of this hallway leads to the bus loop. That’s literally the brightest part of my day, even though  it’s dark outside for half the year and HOLY SHIT GOD DAMN IT!

It’s snowing again.