Toronto Metropolitan University's Independent Student Newspaper Since 1967

All Frosh

SURLYBOT’S GUIDE TO RYERSON

Hi. My name is Surlybot and I’m a second year robophilosophy student.

Never heard of the program? Yeah, it’s only open to robots. Too bad, so sad. Anyway, here are some things I know now that I wish I knew in my first year.

PHOTOCOPYING In highschool, photocopying was what? Ten, 15 cents a page? Well, guess what? Universities like to gouge students too. Save yourself some money and go off campus to photocopy. Many of the surrounding businesses charge as little as 3 cents per page. The only downside is occasionally having the store owner yelling at you for using the machine incorrectly. Whatever, it’s still a good deal.

PRINTING Printing at Ryerson is ass for newbies. Let’s just say you’re in the library, typing up a 12-page essay that’s due in 20 minutes. You just need a conclusion and then you’re done. Well, you know what? You’re screwed already because it’s going to take you at least 40 minutes to find out how to print.

Thus, to save you a 40 minute migraine on a last-minute paper, this is what you do: Ask the librarian about buying a Copy Card early in the year, before you expect to be printing anything. This is a card with funds on it that will allow you to print. You can also do this with your student I.D., which many people find more convenient to do. When you print in the library or computer labs, you swipe your card and 10 cents will be deducted from your account for every page printed. Yup, it’s 10 cents. Don’t like it? Maybe you should get off MSN and get your essay done and printed off at home.

FOOD Buying food on campus is more expensive than buying food off campus. At one of those chain/franchise restaurants up in Ryerson’s hub cafeteria, you pay maybe five dollars for a sandwich.

But off campus, at a restaurant of the same name, you are charged 20 to 40 cents less for the same sandwich. Why is this? I don’t know, it just is. But, not to say you should buy food off campus. That food is shit. Expensive shit. What you really want to do is grow your own food the old school way, organically, with cow dung and such.

NEWSPAPERS Just outside of Ryerson, along the streets of Toronto, you can be a chump and pay 50 cents for a copy of the Toronto Star or the National Post. If you’re smart, you can walk just 30 seconds and pick up a free copy of the papers in many of Ryerson’s buildings.

Seriously, just go to the corner of Gould and Victoria Streets. There’s a line of newspaper boxes on the north corner. Now just walk into Jorgenson hall. Free papers. Sweet. Keep in mind that Ryerson chucks tonnes of paper everyday. Thus, if you see a “used” copy lying around, don’t be an ass and take a new one off the rack, pick up the old one. Don’t be an Earth Hater, yo.

FREE PHONE CALLS There really is no point in using campus payphones when there are so many free phones provided by RyeSAC. Located all across campus in places such as the journalism lounge, the basement of the business building, and in the lounge outside of the RyeSAC office, you can make phone calls without losing a quarter or nuking your brain with a cellular phone.

Remember, when there are people waiting behind you for the phone, you have three minutes of talk time before you are hit with an electric shock, reminding you to be courteous to those waiting.

LONG LINEUPS Information, registration, fees and other administrative headaches are even worse when you have to wait 50 minutes in line. All of these places open early in the morning and if you take this opportunity, you can be in and out in five minutes. Also, you can do a lot of this stuff online, as in at home, in two minutes, with no pants on.

CLOCKS If you’re sitting in class and looking up at the clock every now and then and wondering why the hands aren’t moving, it’s because 99.9% of the clocks in Ryerson do not work. Thus, if you want to be on time for things like exams, you should invest in a watch or make friends with watch-wearers.

CLUBS,SPORTS, MEDIA Get involved. This will make your Ryerson experience rockin’ as opposed to REALLY shitty.

Leave a Reply