By: Juztin Bello, Carter Hemion, Emma Jean, Paige Riding, Nathan Tok, and Sara Wong
Escape room (By Juztin)
As any SFU student knows, being on campus is already kind of like being in an escape room: you’re anxious, have the overwhelming need to escape, and you can’t help but feel like you’ve wasted money on being confused in a room for 50 minutes. It might be nice to have a room where your intelligence and patience are tested by your adaptability to an environment and your success depends on the skills of the people around you. But then again, something like that already exists: it’s called a tutorial room.
PROS:
- A good way to escape your other problems
- Quirky photo opportunity with definitely-not-cringey “we did it!” Or “we tried!” signs
- Can potentially indulge in your secret Stockholm syndrome kink
CONS:
- Your needs for assistance will most likely be ignored (thankfully, if you’ve been a student here long enough, you’re used to it by now)
- You get very little in return for having to think
- You’ll have to pretend to be interested in escape rooms
- Who actually enjoys doing escape rooms?
OnlyFans filming room (By Carter)
After walking in on peers having sex in the occult sciences aisles of the library, being emotionally ruined by hearing my dorm neighbour and his girlfriend banging while the only thing I’m banging out is an English paper due in 14 minutes, and struggling to get the best lighting for my own nudes without a friend showing up at my door for an impromptu study session, I propose a solution to everyone’s problems: an OnlyFans filming room.
PROS:
- Encourages sex positivity, unlike most of SFU.
- Increased safety for sex workers by reducing in-person meetups with that weird guy who lives on Commercial Drive named Kris.
- Supports student jobs so that less students apply to suffer as TAs.
- Keeps fans home and masturbating instead of going out and prolonging this damn pandemic with mediocre hookups that are not worth the risk whatsoever.
- Increased solo sex means less pre-marital sex! Less unwanted pregnancies and STIs so even the evangelical Neo-Nazis can’t protest it.
CONS:
- Bella Thorne may find her way to SFU and take the room from us.
Stan Twitter war room (By Emma)
You know ‘em, you love ‘em, you see ‘em in the replies of every goddamn tweet. For the army that has everything, I propose that the SUB gifts Twitter stans a war room built for plotting their next moves and canceling their rivals. With laptops and deluxe albums (poster included!) as far as the eye can see, they truly keep winning. #StanLoona.
PROS:
- Collaborations result in the best fancams the world has ever seen.
- With the ability to stream like never before, all fandoms get to number one.
- Can pivot to political organizing if necessary. If anyone knows how to win a poll, it’s them.
- Keeps the BTS fans in one controlled environment.
CONS:
- Their resources and teamwork may make them too powerful, resulting in a campus take over. Move over, Petter. Megan thee Stallion’s hotties are invading. There’s a war in this house. There’s some whores in this house.
- They may literally kill each other. Someone will say Future Nostalgia is “kinda overrated idk :///” and all hell will break loose. One group will overpower the others, creating a brutal authoritarian rule. All hail Dua Lipa.
Amazon warehouse (By Paige)
As if students grinding out two minimum wage jobs don’t get exploited enough, let’s continue lining the pockets of CEO Jeff Bezos with an Amazon warehouse conveniently located where students desperate to keep up with tuition hikes for an online semester reside. From slave labour bath mats to textbooks that are nowhere near a “very good” condition despite being advertised as such, this warehouse really does have it all — except ethical working conditions for those who keep it running!
PROS:
- Amazon packages delivered quickly to those on and near campus for the student. unwilling to support local or, I don’t know, any other store.
- Your textbooks that the Bookstore does not actually carry may arrive before mid-October with such a close location.
- Increased job opportunities for students already used to being hurt.
CONS:
- Amazon cares more about incorrect products being placed in a bin than their workers. literally dying in their warehouses. But they have such good sales on paper towels!
- The combination of exploitative hours and wages AND the dangers of parcels falling on workers even makes the exploited TA and RA jobs look good.
- Forklift go brr really loudly during class.
Puppy petting centre (By Nathan)
Basically, an area for students to play with puppies and to have puppy therapy permanently on campus (not just before exams when no one can make their puny time slots, anyway). Students with huge gaps between classes will be offered opportunities to work there so they can kill time and keep the centre open for most of the morning and afternoons.
PROS:
- SFU gets points for placing a place for student wellness inside their brand new state of the art building.
- Huskies housed in the centre can double as sled dogs when it snows and buses inevitably stop running.
CONS:
- The dogs that professors and SFU staff bring to their offices will no longer be the stars of the workplace.
- Everyone will skip class to hang out here and get even more miserable seeing how happy the dogs are compared to students.
- Trusting students to care for other living creatures may be problematic when they consider two iced coffees sufficient fuel for six hours of lectures and two hours of commuting.
Yet another Starbucks (By Sara)
Given that Starbucks is on a quest for world domination by opening new locations within blocks of existing ones, I wouldn’t put it past them to steal an opportunity away from a local business in order to have space in the SUB. While another coffee shop would be a welcomed addition to campus, I’m not sure a Starbucks is the best choice . . .
PROS:
- If you’re in the SUB and need coffee, you won’t have to walk the excruciating 40+ steps to the AQ for Renaissance Coffee or battle the elements (i.e. pouring rain) to get to the painfully similar cafes in WMC or UniverCity.
CONS:
- Droves of Doc Martens-endowed, floppy-haired Tame Impala fans will descend upon the new Starbucks and spend five minutes holding up the line while they order their non-fat, no whip, light iced mochas . . .
- Or a matcha latte, heated to exactly 392 degrees (and not a degree higher, they will check), with 5 pumps magic mushroom syrup and no foam . . .
- Or a grande salted caramel frappuccino, sub the salt in the salted caramel for the tears of philosophy students leaving their highly ambiguous “what does epistemology really mean?” midterm, double blended, in a venti cup with oat milk instead of regular milk.
- Seeing as the two Starbucks already on campus are closed due to COVID-19, a new one probably won’t open for a while (go find your oat milk elsewhere, ya hippies.)
