Simon Fraser University

I spent 3 years of my life here (2011– may 2014). I was attempting to enter International Studies Major (BA of Art), the rude department requires 3.0 CGPA to be declared into the program in 2014. As other reviews mentioned the unfair marking system in this school, it was a bit hard to get the 3.0. I remember one class IS220 (spring, 2014) my TA gave me 14 out of 20 in the participation while she gave my friend, who didn’t attend most of the TA class & never talked in the class, 18 out of 20! I asked the TA why she gave me that Mark, she said «you don’t talk in every class».
Ok there were 20 students in her class, she divided us into groups each group discuss one of the reading question between themselves then share the answer with the class at the end (one person of the group read the answer). How on earth she wanted to me to speak up in behave of my group every class! This isn’t fair for my classmates as well.
I had so much stress when I was there as well I had no idea what my major is all about. They assigned random courses for international studies.
Dont bother to talk to your advicer, they are busy & have at least 300 students other than you.
You prof will gave you 10 minutes to ask in his office hours (if the class has a lot of students)
In the summer of 2014, I made the best decision of my life, I decided to transfer to Trinity Western University.
I’m so pleased to decide to leave sfu, if you didnt find yourself doing well in sfu, leave to any other school. I wish I left it from the first year :)
**someone flag my review so I removed the other one because it has some details about my new school** I edited my review so everyone will know the truth
### to whoever flag me, you have the authority to response to my post & prove I’m wrong if you could

The more years between now and my graduation date, the more I find myself reminiscing about my time at SFU. I know while I attended there, I often fantasized about transferring to UBC but I’m happy I didn’t bother trying.
I’m going to start with the things that I didn’t appreciate about SFU:
1. The Quantitative and Science requirements for BA students — I know most Canadian universities require students in BA programs to receive credits in those types of courses, but when talking to other students at UBC and U of T, they seemed to have it easy compared to what I had to go through. The profs in S and Q courses also seemed to hold it against you if you are an Arts student, as if you actually had a choice in being there. You’ll have to work way harder at these courses than courses pertaining to your major, so be prepared for that, and chances are you’ll probably only end up with C if you actually pass, so there goes your above 3.0 GPA. For science take intro to nutrition and for Q take phil xx1. I passed both of those and I’m pretty sure I was a borderline alcoholic at that point.
2. The TAs — some TAs are great and others have no clue how to mark papers and end up giving you a way worse grade than you deserve. I’ve had both ends of the spectrum, and by 3^rd and 4^th year, having your prof mark your papers is a god send. It’s hard to argue a mark a TA gives you, especially if they are close with that prof — they might convince the prof to keep your mark the way it is or lower it.
3. The quality of the profs is hit or miss. I once had a prof who would lecture reading from an essay she wrote with absolutely no infliction in her voice. Others were phenomenal lecturers and knew how to challenge students to get the best out of them. Always check rate my profs and talk to other students. A good prof always results in a better grade.
4. It’s a very crowded campus. No space in dining areas during lunch and not an empty seat to be found in the library during exam period.
5. You will never be able to find any classrooms in the RCB. It’s like the scene in Harry Potter with the moving staircases — you think this staircase will lead you one way, suddenly you’re in the linguistics departments where no one ever goes.
Things I did like:
1. The library and access to resources were very good. I never had problems finding material for research papers.
2. I got to work on some interesting projects, that while challenging, were cool opportunities that I’m glad I had the chance to work on. SFU also has some innovative programs filled with rewarding projects that will help to put students into exciting careers. …Wish I did a program like that.
3. I honestly liked the location. Getting out of the city almost everyday was nice even if the commute was hellish.
4. Fantastic upper level classes — more intimate yet more challenging. You get to know your prof better and they get to know you. In the best classes I had the 4 hours would fly by. Also you feel more inclined to do the reading/​work as participation marks are very important in seminars.
5. An abundance of bathrooms. Skip the ones in the AQ on the main level; try the empty hallway bathrooms in RCB or the upper part of the library for those I-​just-​drank-​too-​much-​coffee emergencies.
Overall, I enjoyed my time there. I was constantly stressed out and overwhelmed, and I’m pretty sure I had a borderline addiction to alcohol. I also started smoking. That’s university life for you: It should make you feel like a piece of shit so when good things actually do happen (v. rare for sfu BA grads) the feeling of euphoria will be worth all of the bullshit.

I feel very conflicted about the Burnaby campus: it’s isolated and can be isolating, but it’s got a ton of nooks and crannies to explore and the employees (staff and faculty) are great.
The campus is gorgeous from Spring to Autumn, with lots of green havens tucked among the Arther Erikkson architecture. Although this architecture can make for depressing cement structures during the rainy months. Also, due to the age of the structures (50 years in ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆) and the nature of cement in a rain-​heavy climate, many buildings are in dire need of upgrades and repairs.
The school has recently committed to being completely sustainable, so there are dispensers for filling up water bottles, separated bins for recyclables and organics, and even an on-​campus Sustainability group.
As a business (because that’s what universities are), SFU is fairly well-​run from what I’ve seen, although every department feels as though they’re underfunded. I’ve always found the individual staff and employees to be helpful, kind, and knowledgeable. As an institution of learning, SFU has an excellent roster of teachers, although the faculty members tend to be outnumbered by sessional instructors, which hurts these academics. Also, in the faculty I was in, it felt like there were never enough spaces in the necessary classes, or courses of interest were rarely offered.
Speaking as a student, SFU has some annoying hoops to jump through, but I expect most degrees to include that to some extent.

Let me tell you prospective SFUers what SFU is and what it is not, you may not like it but this is an 3.8 GPA alumni talking with a lot of perspective and afterthought. SFU is not an institution of learning, it is a business. SFU is not a place of fair and equal treatment, it is a who-​knows-​who drama setting. SFU is not a 4 year degree awarding, cutting edge technology, academic powerhouse; it is a long slog through endless courses you know you don’t need or want to an ultimate 5 – 7 year away destination at which you arrive at and look back and say «is this it?». Your degree is worth less than the paper it is printed on. You are not a student, you are a customer. If you have a dispute with another student — whoever has a higher GPA or knows the academic invigilator personally gets the favourite treatment.
Possibly the most disgusting thing that I’ve seen is how allegation is treated as evidence by the morons that call themselves campus security. And then all the while this is going on the campus actively promotes/​turns a blind eye to: alcoholism, drug proliferation (not just pot), sexual abuse, sexual and/​or other forms of harassment, defamation, and yes… suicide. These are the things they won’t tell you. This is the honest form of SFU. The BEST approach I’ve seen at this school (and sadly took me 4 years to figure out) is to not get involved, don’t put yourself anywhere near a position of responsibility, don’t get too close to anyone you don’t know really well, walk in groups at night (the campus is not safe), and push through hard taking as many classes as you can cram into your schedule if you want to be out in 4 years.

Great school! Great open campus for walking around. Great education! Try the filtered water!

I did my undergraduate degree here and I must say I felt like it was of the highest quality education in the world and I really enjoyed being there. Some of the science departments are internationally renowned and people travel from all over the world to have the privilege to study under some of the faculty. I would recommend this to anyone looking to get an undergraduate science degree as they do a trimester system which allows you to complete your degree faster in a more flexible way

the burnaby campus is nice and secluded, however the facilities are very very old.
The quality of professors are very unstable, but in general getting better as you go up in years. Otherwise it’s a very pricy university, not a lot of highlights personally.

SFU is a good, albeit slightly unorganized and occasionally inefficient, university.

I spent a _​lot_​of years here, between two majors, a certificate, many terms of co-​op, and electives. I’ve visited many other universities, and taken courses in several other universities, but SFU holds a special place in my heart. It’s gorgeous in the summer, surrounded by nature, and although a commuter campus, has wonderful people if you make the effort to seek out the campus life.
My main complaint with SFU was always the lack of good food options and hangout space. But that has been fixed in the last several years. With Renaissance coffee, cornerstone, and many new buildings, SFU is a great place to be.

It’s my first term at SFU. I’m coming back after a 5 year hiatus as a result of spending my first 3 ½ years at one of the top ranked party schools in America. Supposedly school is more difficult up here? That’s what people keep telling me, but so far that’s not the case. I guess being a mature student could help. Education is so much cheaper here, that I feel physically ill thinking about the money I wasted down south. It isn’t the most attractive campus, though there is one pretty courtyard, and lots of nice trails to walk around the mountain. I’m in the psychology department. All of my professors are top notch, and very active in the research community. It sucks you get stuck with one advisor if you have 60+ credits, because the one and only undergraduate psyc advisor is just aweful. Not sure what the complaints about the food are all about… there are some excellent eats, for instance, The Ladle, and a bunch of stuff at Cornerstone, that are reasonable priced and quite delicious.

I think SFU in Burnaby is the most beautiful campus to go to school, with awesome scenery, well kept landscaping, fantastic architecture, nice art in almost all the hallways and corridors, and offers a well respected education. It is a very multicultural university, and I made friends and acquaintances from all over the world while I attended.
The main original campus was designed by a world renown architect Arthur Erickson, and has been the setting of many movies. The design even lets you walk from building to building under cover (for all the rainy days). I appreciate the campus even more now that I have graduated. I was a student there up until 2004, and since then a lot of development has brought even more life and amenities to the campus.
If you take a walk around the campus, observe how great the landscaping is; I hardly see a plant that looks out of place or any neglect to the maintenance of the walkways. Listen to the lack of noise pollution; it is usually quite peaceful, but if you need ultimate peace and quiet you can take a short stroll to one of the nearby trails that surround the campus, sit in the court yard oasis of the Academic Quadrangle, or walk to Burnaby Mountain Park. And if the weather is a bit cold, wet and/​or foggy, just grab a hot coffee and you will warm up and quickly appreciate the mountain top setting. I still like to go back and visit once in a while just to wander and enjoy the scenery, without the classes.
It wasn’t all positive when I attended. There wasn’t many good food options at the time (but this has drastically improved now), some classes had too much theory without enough real life applicability taught, and I was a bit choked when they wouldn’t transfer many credits from the college I attended, even when some of my textbooks used were the same!
Overall, my best memories are from taking part in various clubs, hanging out in study areas and computer labs which made some of the dreadful project work social and more fun, and living in the townhouses with some great roommates. Despite some of the bad reviews, I highly recommend the school. It may not be the most social with the lack of fraternities and big wild parties, but that is one less distraction towards achieving good grades I suppose.

I’m a mature student with an «A» average who has taken transfer credits at several schools. SFU was the worst of the lot. …so bad, in fact, that, in retrospect, it’s actually funny.
I took four courses there. Here’s the run-​down:
Early Chinese History: taught by a young white guy from Iowa who proceeded to tell the students – 95% of whom were Chinese – that he was going to make us all challenge our perceptions about China. You know, like he did back when he went to China and realized that not everyone sees America as the centre of the universe. Ironically, he could stand to brush up on his own knowledge of China. Our lecture on the warring states period consisted of a classroom discussion about why states – any states – might go to war. Who was at war during the warring states period? What were they fighting over? I still have no idea. Assignments consisted of two 750 word papers, one of which involved writing a memo to Stephen Harper in the voice of a warring states philosopher. Perhaps because there was no genuine need to pay attention in class, lack of paying attention (via texting, web surfing, or even having your cell phone accidentally ring) was punished with a severe grade penalty. Despite all this, students seemed to like this prof because he made a point of remembering everyone’s name.
Intro to Chinese Culture: The prof was a super nice, likable, organized and professional guy with some very serious quirks. He wasted a whole lecture reteaching essay basics and docked me marks on my term paper because I didn’t begin my thesis statement with «In this essay, I will discuss» (I’m a professional writer. I promise I know how to write a thesis statement. The essay had one. Honest). This prof insisted that we include pictures in our assignments and that we select a variety of sources for our research (books, journal articles, web resources), all so we could prove we knew how to document these things. He also made the class hand-​write the «term paper» in class as a means to avoid cheating. However, it goes without saying that you can’t write much of a term paper in 90 minutes. The piece had to have sources cited, and he originally wanted the bibliography written during this time period too. «Five or six sources should be enough,» he said. That’s quite a term paper. Oh, the prof also had a weird obsession with obscure details. I’m all for having to listen carefully and take good notes in class in order to pass tests, but really, why do I need to know who authored ancient acupuncture texts? I bet my acupuncturist doesn’t even know.
Introduction to Mass Communcations (distance): I think that’s what it was called. You know you’re in trouble when you don’t even know what the course was supposed to be about. The prof wrote his own text book. It contains no thesis statements or topic sentences, and, for that matter, doesn’t convey much information at all despite excessive verbage. The text book contains a chapter on an industry I have worked in for 20 years. It is – how can I put this politely – a pile of merde. It is factually incorrect and appears to have been the output of about 2 hours’ total research. That might be generous. The discussion topics for this course consisted of – essentially – «read the chapter then say something about it.» The essay questions were… well … not questions for one thing. More like vague, confused statements. How did this man get a PhD? It’s one of life’s great mysteries.
Communications 110 (distance): This was the only decent course of the bunch. I read two books. I wrote four papers and an exam. I was expected to do my own thinking. What a concept. At one point, I was penalized for writing too little, even though I wrote the maximum number of words allowed for the assignment. But compared to everything else, this is a minor issue.
In short, if you are remotely intelligent and if you expect more from university than simply being kept busy with any old thing until you get your piece of paper at the end, then SFU is not for you.

I obtained my first degree from here a few years ago. In terms of actual education, the quality is pretty good, especially psyc, communications, english, kines, and crim (I wasn’t a science major so I have no idea about those courses). However, campus life is lame and the weather almost always sucks because it’s located on a damn mountain. During the winter, SFU is a scene from a horror movie at its best, with its gray AQ dungeon and thick fog. Having to pay $ 10 a day just to park there, and having no food choices other than white spot, the empty pub or the pricey Raven café (unless you want to drive down the hill again) left SFU with a lot of room for improvement (I think it’s better now with the construction they’ve done in the last few years or so thought). If I had to choose again, I probably would have gone to UBC instead.

I’ve not been a student here, so can’t comment! I visited as part of a Stargate SG1 location tour, to wonder at the extraordinary architecture. The university has 3 campuses of which the main one (which I visited) has a dramatic setting on the peak of Burnaby Mountain. There’s stunning views, if you don’t find yourself swallowed in dripping clouds!
The ‘Academic Quadrangle’ has appeared as a setting several times, in Stargate, Battlestar Gallactica, Andromeda, and as a backdrop ‘headquarters’ shot in X-​Files. It’s also been used in many films including Antitrust and The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008). It’s a huge square ringed (or squared?) by buildings raised above the ground on pillars (sort of hard to describe!). Inside the square are gardens and paths, with ponds that dramatically reflect the architecture. Surrounding buildings are just as interesting in my opinion.
One feature I noticed is a statue of Terry Fox. He had his leg amputated due to bone cancer while at the University. Later on he went to run his ‘marathon of hope’ across Canada, so arguably starting the whole tradition of running for charity.
Architects were Arthur Erickson and Geoffrey Massey, and construction started in 1964.

I went to this school for 5 years with a few semesters off in between. I have come to know the insides and outsides of this school. What I recommend to future SFU graduates:
1. Avoid taking classes in the AQ — its dirty and crowded (WMC is the best place for classes)
2. Summer semester is NEVER a good idea
3. The Library is full of little study nooks and crannys
4. Bring a lunch (unless you want to eat Subway or Koya for the next 4 years straight)
5. Appreciate the school when it’s a sunny day
6. Curse the school when you get stuck on the mountain in the middle of January because of too much snow.
7. Carry an ice scraper in your car (although you may not need it where you live, chances are you’ll definitely need it at SFU)
8. Don’t live on campus (for many reasons, but the lack of food choices is the main one)
9. If you’re taking transit, be prepared to get stuck halfway up or down the mountain at least 3 times in your 4 year university life
10. Ask about your professors reputation before you take a class with them (it makes a world of difference!)
11. Take hard classes with people you know
12. Go to Orientation at the beginning of Frosh Week
13. Ask if you don’t understand
Although there are so many things to be said about SFU, truth be told, it wasn’t that bad. I had an enjoyable time — met some amazing people (I actually met my bestest friend on the first day of orientation!), took some fantastic classes, and made some crazy memories! I wouldn’t trade in my experience for the world!

Unlike the Albert W, whom I have some serious doubts as to whether he attended the university, I actually still go to SFU.
I don’t get what’s particularly bleak about the architecture — I would call it a standard-​issue North American concrete building, and nothing fancier than that. Although there is a somewhat subterranean aspect of the AQ, if one was to go to a ⁵⁰⁰⁰⁄₆₀₀₀ level room, they would be greeted with a view of the pond, the «ziggurat» and other pieces of the artwork on display. That and a statute of Terry Fox.
I don’t know anything about the suicide rates — frankly I’ve always considered it a myth, and I haven’t heard of a suicide for my 7+ years there. Being on top of the mountain, with a mismanaged pub, and previously underfunded departmental student union (DSU) leads to a rather tame campus life. There are specific DSUs that are quite active — Computing Science and Engineering. The tamer campus life allows for a gamut of activity. You could join a bunch of crazy geeks who played hockey in the convocation mall with the engineers the night before the campus was shutdown by snow, or you can find an obscure corner on campus if you don’t want to be disturbed — and everything in between.
The Library is surprisingly responsive to suggestions — I’ve made suggestions to acquire/​update books, and none had been met with a negative response.
Campus life on SFU is what you make of it. If you treat it as a commuter campus, then you’ll pop by for your class, and leave. If you want to hang out, you can find company, or you can raise heck and get the ball rolling. BEvERage gardens are quite frequent, especially in summer. Unlike our nearest neighbour, UBC, most buildings are not well hidden and a pain to find, spare the poor souls banished to the Robert C Brown halls or Education building; the worse walk from one side to the other side is at best 15 minutes for the slowest of walkers, while I’ve been lost looking for a guest lecture at UBC.
I’ve been on this campus for a significant amount of time, and defied its stereotypical image of SFU. You can do the same.

Notoriously known for the highest undergraduate suicide rate of any university in Canada, student life at SFU is a bit questionable. Our hero isn’t exactly pleased with the aesthetics of the «concrete jungle» that is SFU.
PROS:
— The entire university was designed like a prison; their main architectural center is a bleak concrete «Academic Quadrangle». At least make it a «Party Hexagon», «Englightenment Oval», or something more appealing… like a Borg Cube.
— I’ll bet it’s a good bomb shelter.
CONS:
— Life or education? Not a hard call on this one.