Comments on: Crazy few weeks at school

By: Joshua

Joshua — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:37:44 +0000

Wow, that sounds awful, I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t know why this seems to be happening more this year, even though I keep hearing that it’s not happening that much more than usual. I never had a fire alarm pulled before third year, so it’s hard to say. Hope all of that worked out!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:55:20 +0000

Hahaha one of my friends was in that class. Uhm im in my first year of york and i hate it. I had a similar situation in my economics course and no it was not just for a midterm but for the entire course. We are suppose to be having 2 tests and an exam for that course. First test, when there are 10 minutes remaining for the test to be over, someone pulls the fire alarm and the test is cancelled. We did have a make up test and no one pulled the fire alarm… thank god. But on the second test, the same thing happened but this time the fire alarm was pulled off in the first ten minutes… well that was better instead of having it go off by the end of the test. The exam, same thing happened. The prof still hasnt updated us on what he will be doing about it and im sooo pissed.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:37:30 +0000

Gj: Unfortunately, I don’t think we have cameras next to all of the fire alarms, and even if someone pulled one in public, I’m sure most people assume it was for a genuine reason. I’m sorry I gave you ideas =P

Lisa: Yah seriously it’s kinda ridiculous now :S We have one final chance on Friday, and if someone pulls it again, we have to do an oral exam with the professor…. ugh.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:44:39 +0000

LOL, someone really knows how to cheat the system, but it’s pretty annoying for the students who’ve actually studied. I can’t believe that such a simple trick is played during university exams. Yet it’s so effective.
Surely, the person will eventually get caught.

Hope your med school application goes well!

By: Gj

Gj — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:02:12 +0000

hmm.. it seems desperate times call for desperate measures..

Don’t the people get caught for pulling the alarm?
This alarm trick is great if one isn’t ready for the test,

What happens if the person who pulled it gets caught, I will Consider this if the time is correct and its absolutely needed
Just kidding..

By: Joshua

Joshua — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:34:40 +0000

Mmmm that’s interesting. I wonder if there is actually a rule on being allowed to continue your test after a fire alarm because there’s the problem of students discussing answers outside before coming back in.

By: Nadia

Nadia — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:46:23 +0000

Our fire alarm story was just really crazy. Halfway through the calculus test, someone pulled the alarm. The prof told us to leave our tests as they were and to run back in as soon as the alarm stopped ringing. 15 mins later, the alarm stopped and we dashed like crazy back into the classroom. In the end, we got an extra 15 mins, but the confusion and panic of the whole scenario sure cost us …

By: Joshua

Joshua — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:12:23 +0000

Hey Natalie,

I remember having fire alarms go off during the winter when I was in high school and having to stand outside in the freezing cold. That was not fun =)

The York residence I lived at for my first two years had an insane amount of fire alarms go off throughout the year. They are ridiculously sensitive, but I guess that’s for safety purposes. But it would go off several times a month, and if the fire alarm went off in one house, all ~10 other houses had to be evacuated as well.

The worst time was when it happened once in the middle of the night, and after the firemen came and determined it was safe to go back inside (obviously lol), some other house set off another fire alarm less than five minutes later!

By: Joshua

Joshua — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:09:38 +0000

Hey Alice,

Sad thing is that I’m pretty sure more than one student in our class (which is pretty large, >500 students I would imagine) has done it this year, as there are quite a few tutorials, and several of them have had fire alarms pulled on them this year.

As someone mentioned above, one of the organic chemistry professors has started a petition about this kind of thing. I haven’t read it, but whatever that amounts to, I’m sure it’ll be applied to all courses (though not in time for me to benefit from it haha).

By: Natalie

Natalie — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:41:08 +0000

Wow, that fire alarm story sounds REALLY frustrating.

We have fire alarms pulled once in a while at our school, and even after the school installed cameras (for that very reason) it still happens sometimes. It’s really bad when it goes off when it’s minus 30 in the winter, and students in the swimming pool during phys ed risk literal hypothermia.

The alarm goes off so often that we’ve come to assume that someone pulled it, as opposed to an actual fire. And that’s not safe.