Hey there! So, remember those university movies? Pitch Perfect. The Social Network. Good Will Hunting. Yeah, turns out UNBC is nothing like those. No spontaneous acapella battles in the Agora (unfortunately), and definitely no Matt Damon solving impossible math problems on hallway whiteboards.
But here’s the thing, it’s also not the academic horror story your high school teachers warned you about.
The Freedom is Real (and Slightly Terrifying)
Coming to UNBC means you suddenly have choices. Like, a weird amount of choices. Want to wear your Birkenstocks with socks in -20°? Go for it. Feel like taking that Nisga’a Language elective even though you’re in Computer Science? Nobody’s stopping you.
The freedom hits different when you realize you can literally just… not go to class. (I mean, check your syllabus first, some profs take attendance like it’s their personal mission). But technically? You could skip your 8:30am lecture to get caf food with that person from your residence floor. Not saying you should, but the fact that you can is both liberating and mildly concerning.
That Time I Thought I Was Good at Math
Okay, a bit of context, I came to UNBC absolutely crushing high school math. Like, I’m talking 90s without breaking a sweat. So naturally, I walked into my first MATH 100 midterm with the confidence of someone who’d never been humbled by university.
52%.
Fifty. Two. Percent.
My friends literally laughed when I told them. Not in a mean way but then they got their results back. One failed. Another barely scraped by with a 48%. Suddenly we were all just staring at our papers like “what… what just happened?”
Then it hit me, this isn’t high school 2.0. Nobody’s reminding you about assignments. The prof isn’t checking if you understood yesterday’s material before moving on. You’re juggling meal planning, laundry, maybe a part-time job, trying to make friends, AND somehow learning calculus at warp speed.
The Social Side (Because We’re Not Robots)
Speaking of finding your people, UNBC’s social scene is… well, it’s what you make of it. We’re not UBC with their 50,000 students and endless clubs for left-handed ukulele players who also like vintage stamps. But we’ve got our own thing going.
In the end university hits different than high school, and not always in the ways you expect. But you’ll also figure it out. We all do, eventually. Some of us just take the scenic route through a few failed midterms and questionable dining hall combinations first.
Welcome to UNBC. It’s weird here, but like, in a good way (mostly).
