Dear First Year Student,
Welcome to what could be, with a little luck and effort, some of the best years of your life. But before you begin, here is my advice to you.
During Imagine Day you may have been told that the really ugly tree outside of IKB is an upside down tree the engineers “created”. That is a lie told to first years.
You may be slightly confused about whether or not IKB, Irving, and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre are three different places. They are not.
You may also have heard older students condescendingly complain about the folly and ignorance of the eighteen year old students, fresh out of high school. Ignore them. They were you, once.
You may have gone to the annual toga party and puked that bootlegged Captain Morgan’s you paid three times the actual price for all over the attractive frat boy you were talking to. This is not the first time this has ever happened, nor will it be the last.
You may have panicked after stepping into the Vanier caf and realizing that you will be primarily eating that very…unique food for the next eight months. Embrace it, as you will be surprised to discover you might miss it when you have to cook for yourself.
You also may have to walk around the campus five times your first week because you just can’t seem to be able to remember which side of campus the Geography building is on. (Hint: it’s on West mall behind Koerner and the Math Annex.)
First year is full of awkward mistakes, uncomfortable encounters, and experiences that you wish you hadn’t had but are grateful for nevertheless. At least I know my first year was. Yes, I hooked up with that greasy frat boy even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to, I thought the knee high fringe suede boots were a good idea, and I wasn’t great at knowing how to make friends I could be truly genuine with. But my myopic little world also exploded when I stepped onto the UBC campus. Suddenly I was surrounded by gifted, interesting people from all around the globe who were doing amazing things in their studies, people who challenged my perceptions and ideas inside and outside of the classroom.
Opportunities to better myself and explore the world suddenly blossomed all around me in ways I never would have expected. University isn’t perfect and your first year definitely won’t be, but it can still be pretty damn wonderful. I really just want to let you, dear First Year Student, know that it is okay to make mistakes and be awkward and ask for directions and occasionally puke in uncomfortable situations. It’s your first year, and behind every condescending smirk you get from a second, third, fourth, or bedraggled fifth-plus year student, is a dim and shadowy memory of their own first year misadventures. Don’t use being a First Year as an excuse to run wild and be irresponsible with your health and wellbeing (or grades), but rather embrace the coffee soaked and excitement-filled madness that is your First Year.
So good luck class of 2018, and welcome to the University of British Columbia. We’re happy to have you here, and excited to see what you can do.
Sincerely,
Gretta
(and every else here, too)