Raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by Degree Navigator.
It’s 11:58 p.m. the night of the infamous add/drop deadline and you’ve got two minutes to make a decision.
Do you drop? And feel even more relief than when a SORRY BUS FULL bus lets you on?
Or do you keep the course and say goodbye to the free time you would have spent binge-watching conspiracy videos about koalas (what are they up to!?)?
But there’s no way you needed that course to graduate, right? In a moment of uncharacteristic optimism (or delusion), you drop it.
1. Denial
You check Degree Navigator the next morning just to be sure, and there it is: a requirement with no substitutions. But it has to be a mistake! How can you trust a website still stuck in its dial-up era?
2. Anger
"Do you even know who you're dealing with? Hello? UBC? It's me, student 14994645! Ring any bells? No? I’m the one who carried the CONS 313 group project. Still no? Surely my nightly all-nighters in Koerner Library have earned some recognition. Do you know how much I’ve paid in tuition?! You'll be hearing from my lawyer ... when I can afford one. I just need to sell my textbooks from last term."
3. Bargaining
With the panic comes the emails.
“Hi [academic advisor who couldn’t care less],
Was [mind-numbingly tedious course] actually essential for my graduation, or is this some cruel academic version of Punk’d? Could we perhaps schedule a meeting, say, before the climate crisis kills us all?"
Good luck getting a response from them.
Rumor has it, your academic advisor swapped the SSC for ASMR. Who knew pretending to give haircuts and tapping on tables would be less intense than handling our existential academic crises? Better not blink or you'll miss them going viral on TikTok with “Soothing course registration sounds.”
4. Depression
Contemplating the seriousness of your predicament, you start to think university may not be for you. Maybe you’re destined for something grander, like feeding pigeons and regretting your life choices.
You sift through countless r/UBC threads hoping to find a kindred spirit to no avail. Desperate, you write a post (yikes), hoping someone will reply telling you the course is cross-listed and offering you a Starbucks gift card. But instead all you get are downvotes and one comment that reads “just use Degree Navigator, dumbass.” Looks like you’ll be taking that course next summer. Now both your vacation plans and Reddit karma are tanking.
5. Acceptance
Maybe UBC won this round. But who cares if you have to extend your degree by a term (or five)? You’ll get to dodge the job market and student loan creditors. That’s valuable life experience for when you’re running from real-life loan sharks.
Graduating on time? Overrated. Everybody knows six years is the new four.
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