Written by Zoe Vedova, Peak Associate

The bad-CAT Undergraduate Conference is an annual, terrifying exploration of the diversely terrible student work that gets half-assed at this university. The worst students from all our schools and programs have an equal opportunity to present awkward performances, ill-conceived installations, and horrendously formatted papers.

Students are encouraged to submit projects to bad-CAT 2020 with zero foresight and zero contemplation of what it means to commit to presenting at a conference. Wondering if you’re shitty enough to apply? 

Have you ever . . . 

• Printed a bibliography without clearing the grey highlight?
• Handed in a smarter sibling’s paper you found lying around your house?
• Winged a presentation with an impromptu Mary Jane-fueled interpretive dance on the political economy of mass media?
• Used a quote that took up an entire page of your paper and then randomly attributed it to The British Journal of Criminology?

Great! Apply now!

The deadline to apply for the conference is February 31.*

All projects submitted through email must include: 

• Corrupted files and broken PDF links.
• Document margins that have been clearly dicked around with.
• A 200–1000 word excuse for why your project is terrible.** 
• A reference letter from a TA agreeing you are an awful participant.

*Per bad-CAT regulations, no projects submitted before or on February 31 will be accepted.

**If there is any indication you got someone to read over your application before you submitted it, you will be immediately disqualified.  

Here’s what other students have to say about their bad-CAT experience!

“I was honoured to be the only first year allowed to the conference after I accidentally enrolled in Communications, thinking I’d clicked Computers and then never correcting it.”

• A. Salib, first-semester academic probation.

“The conference isn’t for plain old coasters, you know. It’s for the students who’ve achieved their academic anti-apotheosis scraping against the ocean floor of failure without ever giving up to the peer pressure of taking a gap year.” 

• T. Glasser, fourth-semester academic probation.

“Bad-CAT is the most inspiring event of the year for me. That’s why even though I’m always accepted, I never show up.” 

• P. Orin, second-time Required To Withdraw.

SFU wants to formally recognize YOUR disengagement from our community. Apply to bad-CAT whenever you realize you forgot you were supposed to apply for bad-CAT!

DISCLAIMER: bad-CAT Undergraduate Conference has NO RELATIONSHIP to the FCAT Undergraduate Conference, besides the fact that we totally plagiarized their conference name and structure and then changed it a bit so it wasn’t obvious that we copied. Just like we expect you to do on your submissions!