+ Beautiful campus! + Polite, helpful people & ambience…read more + Fascinating architecture, including the UBC Faculty of Forestry and the Koerner Library shaped like an open face-down book. + The Barber Library and the bright blue water fountain before it offer an aesthetic photogenic scenery. - Too bad some places such as the UBC Bookstore, the Anthropology Museum, and the IKB Library weren't open when I visited early morning or during the summer. I really wanted to visit the Harry Potter-esque section of the Ridington Room. - $18 to access the beautiful Beaty Museum? Man, wish it was free. + lol they have a nude beach right by campus. About 300 steps down Trail 6. There were only 5 ppl down there, all clothed. Prob cuz it was cloudy and cold. It rained a little. As for my paid parking, per my parking receipt and my G Pay bill: $8 for 2hr + $0.85 service fee = $8.85, but as for my bank statement, it's: $6.53 USD + $0.19 foreign transaction fee. The conversion 1.37 CAD = 1 USD checks out. No biggie.

... memories ... I…read morewas rearranging a bookshelf recently and came across this book. It is one I had not seen in quite some time, and seeing it again sure ignited a wealth of memories of my very many 'UBC days'. The book: The University of British Columbia - A Souvenir -- by George Woodcock and Tim Fitzharris. A quote from the forward: ".............. a lasting reminder of this special environment for anyone who has ever visited or been a part of it". For me, those days started in the late-1950's, and continued through to the mid-1960's. UBC was definitely a "special environment" -- it changed and dominated my life in such wonderful, exciting, and fulfilling ways.

It's been a very long time coming for me to see this new piece of architecture come into the…read morelandscape of my AMS after my mutiple decade departure. Anticipation did not disappoint. It's a beautiful building. Spacious, well lit, multiple levels with a fast elevator, and charging stations everywhere for those laptops and pads. The new SUB is still connected to the old SUB via an underground corridor. The PIT is now moved into the new sub from it's old location. I wonder what it'll be like. The soft opening of the new Sub happened sometime early June 2015. I got to peek in here yesterday in the evening. There are still several vendor vacancies in here, but the usual food stalls are around. Blue Chip Cookies will be moving in. I notice that there will be a grocery store settling in soon. There are individual study and conference rooms, as well as new club offices. CITR has already relocated in the basement. In addition there is an performance space and an art exhibition space. Talk about a lot! Looks like I'll be spending more of my leisurely time here whenever I feel nostalgic.

Tons of space which is why I like it. On my days off I visit some of my friends who are studying at…read moreUBC and we hang out at the student union building. Be prepared to fight to death for an outlet for your laptop (kidding on the fight to the death part, however, you get the idea). Most of the time it is really clean, however, teenagers are slobs and still haven't learned that the world isn't going to pick up after them, therefore, expect most seats to have garbage on them. There has been many times in which I felt like a mother cleaning up after these slobs. Oh to be a self absorbed teenager again. There are some food stalls, however, the better ones are closer to the cafeteria (I've reviewed those). They'v recently expanded.

This is a small theatre by most standards. It is cozy and intimate. It is smaller than the…read moreVancouver Playhouse. This is a no frills theatre. The productions that I've seen were very good, but in terms of service, they have minimal refreshments, if you compare it to larger theatres. The box office is not really a box office, it is more of a will call set up. I've come here for several productions, such as Moliere, and Oscar Wilde plays and Dangerous Liasons for which I don't know how many times I've seen live. I can't seem to get enough of it. Maybe it's b/c of that damned French Lit course I took when I was a student. =)

Great space. Intimate too. The way the theatre is built really allows the performers to project -…read moreand you can hear the voices clearly from any seat. Given that it's an older and smaller theatre, ticket prices are reasonable. The two plays I've been to see so far were excellent: A Thousand Cranes, and shortly thereafter, a Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer. The acting was also excellent...but then again, that doesn't have anything to do with the theatre. The experience would be even more enjoyable if they offered more services like a coat check, so people wouldn't have to sit on their coats (no place to put them!).

My major in university was Microbiology and Immunology, so I spent many, MANY hours in the Wesbrook…read moreBuilding. It's one of the older buildings, and inside is a large lecture hall, classrooms, offices, and of course the undergraduate microbiology labs. Students in the microbiology program are required to complete four lab courses; two in third year, and two in fourth year. In order to have somewhere to store their lab coats and safety glasses, each student is also given a locker, which is in the Wesbrook Building. They are not much more than wooden cubbies with locks, but they are large enough to also fit a backpack and textbooks, and having a (free!) locker on campus, near the majority of your classrooms, was such a blessing. My last semester of my undergrad was consumed by the BIG LAB PROJECT. The majority of our last lab course was spent working on a group project. In groups of three or four, you had to design and execute a research project, which included ordering supplies and preparing the materials and media needed, such as sterilizing test tubes. The project was extremely time consuming, and it was HORRIBLE. It was mostly horrible because the people in my group were complete bitches, and treated me like crap. They ignored any contributions I tried to make, didn't notify me of any changes to the protocol, and called me stupid when I asked a question, amongst other things, so in the end, I pretty much didn't even understand what our project was about. (Oh, but they absolutely relied on me to bring the pens and calculator -- they couldn't seem to function without my pens and calculator.) Also, they designed a project that was far too complicated and time-consuming to comfortably complete within the time frame allotted, one semester. It was absolute hell, and I could not wait to graduate. (In case you're curious, the title of our paper was "The Role of Alginate in Gentamicin Antibiotic Susceptibility during the Early Stages of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 Biofilm Establishment". Sounds awful, doesn't it?) For our project, we needed a LOT of Petri plates. This entailed: making the media; sterilizing it in the autoclave; allowing it to cool; pouring the agar into the sterile Petri plates; and then allowing the agar to cool and solidify. This was a process that would take better part of the day, and it was just the PREPARATION in order to DO the experiment itself, and only one small part, at that. (Another part of the project included using cyanide compounds, for some reason that I no longer remember.) One day, I had been working in the lab all day long. It was about 8 or 9pm at night, and I was nearly dead with exhaustion. The sterile Petri plates were finally done, ready to use the next day. Before I was able to leave the lab, I had to pack up the Petri plates in bags, and take them to the storeroom. I carefully packed up all the plates -- well over a hundred, and placed them on a cart. I was slowly and carefully pushing the cart towards the storeroom, when the strap on my backpack, that was on the lower shelf of the cart, became entangled in the wheel. The cart fell over and all my precious Petri plates fell to the ground, ruined. I swore SO loudly, dropped to the ground, and had a full-on temper tantrum. My professor came running out of his office at the commotion and saw me sitting on the ground, amongst dozens of Petri plates scattered everywhere, sobbing. Like my Petri plates, my spirit was broken. I somehow managed to graduate, but I had many challenges during my schooling, and that one moment, with me crying, sitting amongst hundreds of broken Petri plates scattered all over the hallway, with an upturned cart beside me, was the epitome of my struggles in school. [Yelp collections: Schools and Education]