The Ubyssey's Magazine 2024

Break through your limits!

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The Ubyssey, Lauren Kasowski & Elena Massing
March 15, 2024

When you were a kid, everything seemed simpler.

But as you grew older, you started to realize the real world has limitations — bureaucracy, an affordability crisis and (strange) social norms to follow. For The Ubyssey’s annual magazine, we wanted to explore these restrictions and how they interact with our lives.

In this issue, there are articles ranging from blending dance genres and how climate change affects insect physiology, to pushing yourself to your physical limits at Storm the Wall and how student instructor surveys impact faculty promotion. They are not only stories of how people are limited, but also how they are unlimited.

Check out (un)limited now on stands around campus or online.

We hope this will inspire you to break through the limits you can, and accept with peace the ones you can’t.

— Elena Massing & Lauren Kasowski
Editors-in-chief

This year’s magazine

NEWS

Do SEI surveys measure success or perpetrate bias?

At the end of the term, emails flood into student inboxes with the reminder to fill out teaching evaluations. This is a chance for students to grade their professors’ performance as an educator.

By Bernice Wong

What does it mean to ‘serve students’? The AMS is much bigger than its student leadership

If you follow an AMS Elections cycle, one thing becomes clear — the AMS is a lot of things. It’s a lobbying organization, a student union, a non-profit and a manager of over 300 clubs. And students always want it to do more.

By Anabella McElroy

PERSONAL ESSAYS

The Aquatic Centre is an underrated seasonal depression cope

This point in the year is brutal — the 4 p.m. sunset and the thick exhaustion that settles into the darkness. But inside the pool, it’s always bright.

By Tova Gaster

Time to let go

I find myself terrified, mattress limp beneath my weight. The rhythmic pitter-patter of rain on the sliding door calms me, inviting me to align my breathing: pit, pat, pit, pat, in, out, in, out.

By Shubhreet Dadrao

SPORTS + REC

For the thrill of the chase: UBC’s love affair with Storm the Wall

Our drive to challenge ourselves makes us chase activities that push our physical limits in unique ways — hence, the birth of Storm the Wall.

By Renée Rochefort

Stretching dollars: How campus clubs make recreation more affordable

For most students, expensive fitness classes aren’t an option. The UBC Yoga Club and UBC Pilates Club are just two clubs providing options for students to try these disciplines without breaking the bank.

By Iman Janmohamed and Lauren Kasowski

‘Doing the most that you can’: The invisible struggle after sport-induced injuries

A split second is all it takes to define weeks, months or even years of an athletic career. The life-altering impact of an injury arrives not only unwanted, but also unexpected.

By Caleb Peterson

CULTURE

‘Breaking’ limits and ‘locking’ in the unlimited

Raghuvamshi performs as a breaker with the Unlimited Dance Club at UBC. But it wasn’t until October 2022 that he began tackling new freestyle terrain instead of the set choreography he was comfortable with.

By Stella Griffin

Impulse and improv: A bond between ink artists and musicians

When the North American youth of the late ‘60s were struck with the bleakness of industrialization, the uproaring renaissance of punk and rock followed. Those movements inextricably linked the music and tattoo scenes.

By Elena Massing and Fiona Sjaus

The missing ingredient: How culturally-relevant food access supports student wellbeing

Growing up in the Renfrew-Collingwood area of Vancouver, fourth-year geography and urban studies student Philip Vargas and his mom knew where to find real corn tortillas, a staple of his family’s central Mexican cuisine.

By Tova Gaster and Mahin E Alam

SCIENCE

Side effects may include: How GLP-1 agonists push the boundaries of medical treatment

During one of his clerkship rotations, fourth-year UBC medical student Mohit Sodhi had a patient come in with complaints of excessive vomiting — up to 15–20 times in a day.

By Elena Massing

What’s the buzz? How the climate crisis affects insects’ bodies

With the climate crisis, however, insects are facing significant challenges.

By Vicky Nguyen

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