Stressed out UBC grad students ease frustrations with ‘smash therapy’ - BC | Globalnews.ca

Jun 30, 2025

Ever feel like the stress of life is so much you just want to smash something?

Graduate students in UBC’s chemistry department were given the opportunity to do just that in a de-stressing workshop that proved to be a smashing success on Friday.

Students had the chance to process the stress of exams, classes and their personal lives by shattering unsalvageable glass laboratory equipment.

“What am I gonna be thinking about? I think I’ll be thinking about some of my experiments that aren’t working as I’d hope they’d work,” student Keighan Gemmell told Global News.

Students donned safety glasses before taking their aggression out piece by piece.

Their targets were old and damaged lab gear like chipped test tubes or other specialty glassware that, when undamaged, is worth thousands of dollars.

The school said the more stressed a student was, the more expensive the glass they got to break.

“You can run into students here that are stressed out from exams, writing a thesis, stressed out from getting ready for the exam, and they’re walking around like zombies, and they’re very worried,” said UBC chemistry scientific glassblower Brian Ditchburn.

The chemistry department says it repairs or recycles more than 90 per cent of the glass used in its labs.