Top tips for success at SFU from a (struggling) student

By: Chitransh Motwani, SFU Student

1. Take a nap. University is tiring, and we all love napping, so why don’t you just skip that maths class and take a nap instead?
2. Start that huge assignment just before the deadline. They say productivity increases by up to 100% under pressure. So, maybe just wait for the pressure instead of wasting hours on something you don’t understand.
3. Build yourself a tombstone. We have a lot of construction on the campus, so why not just grab some cement and tools and build yourself a tombstone? We’re already dying inside anyway.
4. Take classes at different campuses. I love the power-naps on those long sSkytrain and bus routes. Go get that sleep!
5. Don’t carry an umbrella. I carried an umbrella every day for a week when the weather channel predicted rain, but it’s Vancouver, so it didn’t rain a single day. Getting wet in the rain makes you feel refreshed (most of the time) and it’s really nice when your umbrella isn’t pulling you back when you’re walking.
6. Miss that lecture to clear the backlog of work you created because you missed another lecture or because you love doing assignments at the last moment. What’s university life without a backlog?
7. Wear sunglasses. We should already have superb recognition skills because of the masks, so let’s make it harder for people to recognise you by wearing sunglasses and caps and going into incognito mode.
8. Stop calling SFU a prison. No, the campus was not designed by a prison architect, there is a lot of concrete everywhere, and it does feel like you’re in a prison when you have so many assignments. But, for God’s sake, calling it a prison again and again does not make it better.
9. Over-enroll in classes just because you can. Nobody except you needs credits to graduate, so don’t leave any class seats for the rest of us. Enrol in six or seven classes just to drop three later so none of us will ever know what we’ll be studying.
10. Never stay at campus. Why does everybody stay back at the campus after classes? Go home, watch Netflix, and sleep. Then come back for your next class, which you’re now late for. And then we all can crib about SFU’s dead party scenes together.
11. Don’t get scared of the raccoons. They are SFU’s friends; all they can do is send you to the nearest hospital.
12. Never talk to people. Never leave your mobile phone. Never pull out your AirPods. Let’s be friends on Spotify and say “SFU is an antisocial school.”
13. Go visit the Museum of Archaeology and the Art Gallery . . . Just kidding, unless you want to go home more sleepy than ever.
14. Don’t get up from the bed when you won’t make it to campus in time anyway. Snow season is coming and we all will be having late days. SFU won’t cancel school until everyone is on the mountain, so why not just have a self-care day instead?
15.  Make your own lunch. Food at SFU is expensive, so stop watching Netflix and cook yourself something. And then maybe you can stop excusing everything with “I don’t have money.”
16.  Look at all the homework you didn’t do every night before you sleep. That sleep with guilt hits different.
17. You have no idea what you’re doing with your life at university?  Do not stress about it. None of us do; let it be. Just go to sleep!