Written by Madeleine Chan, Staff Writer
Students at SFU will get notified about their final grades in a melodic way at the end of this semester. The university has employed a fleet of five human singing telegrams to inform the 30,000+ population of students of their failures.
The change comes after reports from students that the previous goSFU email notifications were “too advanced” and would “ruin their holidays” because of their direct and gut-punching arrivals. Starting at the end of the Spring 2020 semester, the new system, go.re.miSFU, will send students hired “go.re.mi-ers” to punch them in the gut and then tell them their grade through song.
A trial run of go.re.miSFU was executed during the Fall 2019 semester. Nita Aye, an SFU student, calls it an “interesting” experience.
“I was studying on the sixth floor of the library,” Aye recounts. “I felt a small tap on my shoulder. I turned in my chair and felt a swift strike to my stomach. Most would think that it would hurt. It did. But the pain was . . . invigorating. So was the spontaneous cover of Lizzo’s “Good as Hell,” followed by the announcement of my A+ grade in EASC 103: The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs.
“I proceeded to study for another eight hours off of the sheer adrenaline.”
Not every go.re.miSFU story ends happily, though. Fred Effez, another student targeted for the trial, tells a different story.
“Christmas dinner was interrupted by a tall man in one of those spandex green-man suits, except it was red and said ‘PROPERTY OF SFU’,” says Effez. “He came right into the dining room, smacked me in the stomach, and started yelling ‘BEE-PEE-KAY ONE-FOURTY, CONTEMPORARY HEALTH ISSUES, F’ over and over again for about five minutes before starting the song.”
Effez was ultimately serenaded to the tune of Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts.”
“I distinctly remember him rapping in my face, ‘You just took a BPK test, turns out you’re 100% worthless’ as my grandmother watched in wide-eyed horror.”
In spite of student complaints like these, Dr. Harry Bauld, an SFU professor involved with developing go.re.miSFU, still considers the switch to be highly necessary.
“This new system will not only be good for students, but for us teachers as well,” says Bauld. “We really need to punctuate the fact that students’ lives are always in our hands, and there’s no better way to do that than through embarrassing song. They need to understand that the smallest percentile change could mean the difference between them working at a Banana Republic or a Banana Republic Outlet for the rest of their lives.”
Watch out for your upcoming go.re.mi-ers at this semester’s end. Remember, failures: brace for impact.
