Kwantlen Polytechnic University: student life on campus

The 411

Best pizza:
Sometimes, I actually have dreams about the melty slices served at Kwantlen Pizza across the street from the Surrey campus
Best place for a nap:
One of the public couches in the Grassroots Café or in the journalism pod in the Cedar building
Best cheap lunch:
Across the street from the Surrey campus is Gulberg Restaurant, a magical place that serves samosas for only a couple of dollars each
Best hangover breakfast:
If you find yourself waking up with a splitting headache before a 10 a.m. class, make things easy for yourself by hitting up Tim Hortons for a breakfast sandwich combo complete with a greasy hash brown and a strong double double
Best bar for hanging out:
Grassroots sells beer made by KPU students, which is really cool and delicious
Best campus food:
Grassroots. Their London fog, mac and cheese and veggie panini are all routine purchases for me when I have a little extra cash and need a pick-me-up.
Best place to study:
The library, of course!
Weirdest tradition:
The Kwantlen Student Association competes against members of the school’s administration in a tug-of-war that results in the winners receiving a large trophy hilariously deemed the Tuggy Cup
Best campus event:
Holi is always fun, and so is the annual bash for the Kwantlen Gaming Guild, which gets students together to play all sorts of games

PROFILE: Kwantlen Polytechnic University | Surrey, B.C. | Founded 1981

The oldest of KPU’s campuses will be turning 30 next year, making it one of the newest universities in the Vancouver area. We’re also relatively small compared to our gigantic neighbours at UBC and SFU, but we’re still mighty and weird enough to be noteworthy.

We’ve fought to define ourselves in inventive ways at KPU. Got a burning desire to learn how to make horseshoes and fit them to ponies? We’ve got you covered. We were the first public post-secondary institution in the country to offer a program focused on working with cannabis; our award-winning student-run brewery is booming; anyone can learn how to manage a commercial beekeeping operation through onsite programming and offsite experience at the Honeybee Centre.

Our trades and tech programs are well-developed and diverse, and even the courses in more conventional faculties can get pretty extraordinary. Last semester, I took an anthropology course called Religion, Magic & Witchcraft that absolutely blew my mind, and there are so many more being introduced every year.

After Class
While student life here can leave much to be desired, the opportunity for go-getters to create their own community is my favourite part of studying at KPU. When I started my B.A. four years ago, I thought I’d be the average in-and-out commuter, but I got involved with the student newspaper and within two years became the editor-in-chief. The amount of freedom I have to start new initiatives and bolster my own personal and professional development is amazing, and new students to KPU can very likely do the same thing.

Throughout my time here, I’ve watched people like me stumble into new, barren niches at school and create something inspiring where there was nothing before. We’re small at KPU, definitely. But what that means is that we’re still growing, and anyone with the drive to make change can be an active participant in that growth.

Local Vibe
There are now five campuses: Langley, Richmond, Cloverdale and two in Surrey. The newest, located at Surrey Civic Plaza, just opened for business, and both Cloverdale and Langley are primarily for trades and music students, respectively. The Richmond campus, right across from the Lansdowne mall and the SkyTrain station, is home to a wide array of faculties and departments. But for the purpose of this guide, we’ve focused on the Surrey campus located on 72nd Avenue, which is the busiest, strangest and best established of them all.

More Info
Check out the Kwantlen Student Association’s website, where you can find their calendar of upcoming events and all their social media. The Kwantlen Book Exchange on Facebook will save you tons of money on textbooks.