An Unofficial Student Guide

By Eyeopener Staff

During your first week at Ryerson, you’ll be bombarded with handbooks and guides detailing what campus life is like. It is important to remember, however, that what they do tell you is just as important as what they don’t.

Here are some tips every frosh needs to know about our glorious campus:

• Think Jorgenson Hall has fully functioning escalators? Think again. If you see them working, take a ride (even if you don’t need to)—you’ll never see them working.
• Don’t swim in Lake Devo. Bums bathe in Lake Devo. You’ll get rabies.
• You will not get docked marks for attending Ryerson’s annual Parade and Picnic. If professors tell you otherwise, call them lying assholes and storm out of class.
• Never call your professors lying assholes and never storm out of class.
• Only go to the Fuel Station on Mondays (karaoke night) and Thursdays (pub night). All other nights are scary.
• Get a membership at the Recreation and Athletics Centre, also known as the RAC. It’s cheap. Besides, with all the beer you’ll be guzzling, you’re gonna need to shed a few pounds.
• Get a watch. Ryerson seems to maintain an unofficial “make sure the clocks are wrong” policy.
• Learn to adapt to the preferences of your professors. A technically and grammatically perfect essay for one teacher could easily be considered a piece of crap by another.
• If you don’t plan on living in residence next year, start looking for housing now. The longer you wait, the worse time you’ll have finding accommodation.
• If you’re commuting to school, give yourself ample time to get downtown. Toronto’s subways are known to mysteriously stop in between stations for up to 15 minutes at a time.
• Beware of cults. There’s a good chance someone will ask you and your money to come pray with him or her during your first few weeks here.
• If you’re living in residence, try not to sleep with anyone on your floor. You’ll screw up the dynamic for everyone.
• Take advantage of The Used Book Room in the lower Jorgenson Hall (room A75). It’s far cheaper than the bookstore, and you can resell your books for beer money when you’re done with them. Just make sure you get there early—it’s known for its huge line-ups.
• Remember to opt out of the health plan if you already have one; you’ll get a hundred bucks back in October. This will give you even more beer money! (Be sure to spend some at Oakham House.)
• Read The Eyeopener each and every Wednesday, and be sure to volunteer with us this year. God likes that.