What your favourite floor on TFDL say about you

By Dylan Mansfield, November 17 2023—

Ah, the TFDL. If you’re a student at UCalgary, you’ve certainly come here plenty of times. Odds are, you probably have a favourite floor to study (or procrastinate) on. Each floor has a unique charm, and your preferences say more about your personality than you might think. Starting from the top:

Floor 6: The Frosh Floor

The sixth floor is to studying as The Banquet is to partying: only freshmen go there, and if you’re not a freshman, you probably don’t go out much. Odds are, your RA told you this was “the best secret study spot on campus,” and you walked into a zoo of stressed-out STEM majors and girls who don’t understand that “library” means “quiet time.” You’re starting from the bottom, yet you’re already on top. 

Floor 5: The “#autumnvibes” Floor

You’re the type of person who hates studying yet loves the idea of it. You like wearing brown, wolly sweaters and sipping out of a venti white mocha, gleefully typing notes while indie-pop blasts through your headphones. You carry around books that you’ll never read, and you’re probably practicing a second language. You chose the quieter, just-as-good-but-not-as-high spot on TFDL. If aesthetics were a class, you’d be valedictorian.

Floor 4: Degenerates’ Cove

Middle floors are like middle children: they often get neglected in favour of what surrounds them. It’s probably the least-used floor on the TFDL and, by extension, the one with the most shenanigans. Have you ever wanted to do non-library things in a library? First of all, why? Second of all, go to the fourth floor. Eat snacks with your mouth open, talk to your friends on the phone, and play lectures on max volume without headphones. The fourth floor is a world without rules.

Floor 3: The Land of Lost Souls

Right behind the sixth floor, the third floor is the spot with the most freshmen. Likely in STEM, these students hover around exploratory advising like ghosts, waiting to enter the next plane of being — typically something in the arts. It’s the saddest floor on TFDL — the smell of stress and regret is extra pungent here — but it’s also the floor of second chances. Here, in the middle of the building, people decide what’s best for them. Should they keep going to the top or restart at the bottom?

Floor 2: Hell (Where You Belong)

I’m sorry: did I just watch you take the elevator to the second freaking floor? Like, seriously? The stairs are right there — by the entrance. Were those twentysomething steps you avoided worth it? The extra two minutes to get here? Was standing in this crowded, sweaty elevator with — one-two-three — ELEVEN strangers worth it? You make me sick. I hope your professor throws nothing but curveballs on your exam.

Floor 1: The Quickstop

You’re probably just here for some coffee or something. Print some papers, maybe. You’re a “go-in, go-out” person — I like that. You’re not like those freaks on the floor above us.

This article is part of our humour section.