20 Things You Only Understand If You Go To Dalhousie University

As a 3rd year undergraduate Dalhousie student, I’ve definitely faced many challenges and advantages that friends of my hometown university haven’t. Read below for some of the things, good and bad, that I’ve encountered in my university experience (and maybe you have too!) Here are 20 things you only understand if you go to Dalhousie University. Enjoy!

1. Dressing in 500 layers to go to your exam in the Dalplex.

Will it be 30 degrees in there, or negative 10? Who knows.

2. Using the Killam atrium doors as your daily workout.

Then feeling super embarrassed that you struggled with that 30 pound door.

3. The need to go to Tim Horton’s, even if your class is in 10 minutes and the lineup is going to take at least 20.

Let’s be real, we all know those people that walk into class 5-10 minutes late with a hot coffee in hand (and maybe we are that person sometimes, too.)

4. The struggle of finding the Killam stairs.

Who thought of putting stairs at opposite ends of the atrium? Not a clue. But at least I don’t have to go to the gym after walking around the whole atrium and up 5 flights of stairs.

5. The struggle to find a study spot in “the stacks”.

Once you find the stairs, then you have to find an empty cubicle in the stacks – which is nearly impossible around mid-terms and exams, so you just give up and go home.

6. That Free Food Hype.

Around midterms and exams, student societies often pass out study snacks in the SUB and library – but they only ever last about 5 minutes. Stressed out, hungry students = an angry mob of rhinos when there’s free food.

7. Getting from Studley to Carleton or Sexton Campus (or vice versa) in the 10 minutes between classes.

This is just plain unfair to expect.

8. Avoiding the grocery store like the plague because market mornings are a thing.

There’s literally nothing better than feeling at least a little healthy by buying fresh, local, discounted foods from the DSU market every Tuesday & Thursday – even if every other meal is KD, or beer.

9. When it’s FINALLY Loaded Ladle lunch day.

Again, who doesn’t like free food? Even if the line goes from one end of the SUB to the other.

10. Calling Tiger Patrol 28 times because you don’t want to pay for a cab.

Tiger Patrol is great, but nobody ever seems to know which phone number is which, and so we end up calling both.

11. Getting all your friends together to buy Dal After Dark Tickets right before an event.

When drinking isn’t your thing, Dal After Dark is definitely the way to go. From Surfing, to Escape Rooms, to Human Board Game Nights, and Skating at the Oval, or Glow in the Dark mini golf, there’s so many things to do around Halifax that Dal offers for cheap, you just cant choose where to go!! (And as students, we obviously leave the planning for these events until the last minute.)

12. Dal Alerts.

Not sure about you, but I get SO HYPED when I get a Dal Alert text saying the school is closed. That, or disappointed when the text is only for the agricultural campus.

13. Feeling passionate about student issues because how can you not?

With all the activism groups on campus, the DSU, and the constant rising tuition, you can’t help but want to join the strikes and marches against important social issues, unfair administrative decisions, and oppression on campus. Dalhousie is the place to be for student life, that’s for sure!

14. Questioning daily if Mother Nature just pulls Halifax’s weather out of thin air.

So, it’s 8 degrees and sunny when you leave the house, then the next hour it’s hailing, then the next hour it’s down pouring?? I still don’t know how we’re supposed to dress for campus, but somehow we live through it.

15. Temperature fluxes between buildings.

Again, how do we dress for this? When morning classes in the Henry Hicks are 45 degrees Celsius and the LSC is -10 degrees.

16. Not knowing what you’re doing because Academic Advising sends you to the Registrar’s office…

…and the Registrar’s office tells you to ask Academic Advising.

17. When you can relate more to the Dal memes Instagram than you can to any class material.

When the professors try to make class content more personable and you just sit there like:

18. Debating your future, your life choices, and not buying the class textbook because the bookstore lines in September are WAY TOO LONG.

True.

19. Trying to fit 5 classes, 4 labs and 3 tutorials into your schedule come registration.

The struggle is SO real. Not to mention waking up at the crack of Satan’s butt to register during your 6 a.m. time slot and the class is already full.

20. Forever not accepting that the “Marine Venus” statue is anything but an exploding penis.

Classic.

Can you think of anymore things you only understand if you go to Dalhousie University? Share in the comments below!

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