My experience at University of British Columbia would have been very different had I not met three individuals by the names of Jack Yaremko, Ethan Lodermeier, and Ryan Huang in my second year of mechanical engineering. These fine young men not only supported me academically through many tumultuous midterm seasons and term-long projects, but also provided me with an abundance of joy and love in my life.
Ryan was my lab partner for three consecutive years of mechanical engineering (poor Ryan). We met early on in Mech 2, realized we worked quite well together, and decided to continue our lab partnership through to the end of fourth year. I had formally met Ethan in the first week of Mech 2 as well, but we didn’t really start hanging out with Jack until Dr. Pete put the three of us into a group for a term-long project in the second semester of second year. That’s where the fun began.
The four of us were all in the mechatronics program at UBC, which meant we had the exact same schedule for the final two years of school. We spent time together in class and also had shared breaks between classes that were completely our own. In January 2023, we stumbled upon the shoddy pool table on the first floor of the Engineering Student Centre (ESC). We quickly determined it was the ideal way to pass the time (instead of studying), and before long, the pool table became the unofficial hangout spot for our group. It didn’t take long for us to be dubbed the “Pool Boys,” especially after we upped our game by purchasing and carrying our own individual cues around campus. Life revolved around the ESC table. We debriefed exam performances there, worked on lab reports, gave up on finishing lab reports until later that night, shared life stories, and celebrated anything we could as an excuse to hang out longer with cues in our hands.
Traditions were established: Thanksgiving, Christmas, the last day of classes, and the final exam of each term all required a fitting celebration of pool and merriment around the ESC table. Egregious amounts of Timbits and Domino’s pizza were consumed as we played well into the night, often leaving us as the only people in the building—especially during the depths of the December and April exam seasons.
The pool playing didn’t stop once school ended for summer break. We found a solid table at a local hall in Burnaby, continuing the tradition of dinner followed by a solid five hours (minimum) of pool, where the quality of play slowly dwindled as the clock struck 2 a.m. and the place closed. Pool was played while visiting Jack in Logan Lake during his co-op at Highland Valley Mine. Pool was played after our last final exam in April 2025, when the four of us traveled to Winnipeg together to celebrate completing our degrees. Pool was played at nearly every stop on our grad trip to Europe in June 2025, including Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, and Croatia.
When I saw that UBC Alumni had funds available to support an alumni meetup one night in Croatia, I knew exactly what the four of us had to do: eat some good food and play some damn pool. Luckily, our application was accepted, and that’s how we found ourselves on July 31st eating great food, playing pool, catching up, and sharing stories from the past month.
Ethan and I had just started our first jobs, and the transition from university to full-time employment was (and still is) difficult for me. That evening provided a meaningful opportunity to talk through my challenges with my best friends. We ate dinner at a local kebab spot and then carried the conversation over to Marstin Billiard Hall. As always, it was a great time. For me, it’s not so much about the pool (trust me, I love the game but remain consistently bad at it despite the thousands of reps); it’s about getting to spend time with my best friends. Sometimes I stop and think about how lucky I am to have such incredible people in my life.
Thank you, Jack, Ethan, and Ryan, for always being there for me—for laughing at my jokes, helping me through university, and being my friends. And thank you to UBC Alumni for supporting us with the funds to make that evening possible.
Submitted by Josh Greenwood, BASc ' 25
