Commuting to College?

preamble1776
Mon, 08 Sep 2014 20:41:32 +0000

I commute; but I don’t drive, I use public transportation. Depending on how fast or slow the trains are running, my commute takes me between 30 to 50 minutes each way. I don’t mind it terribly – I wake up very early, usually at 5am, and I head out the door at 5:45. This way, I always get a seat on the train and I can do some extra reading for my classes to get ahead or just zone out, depending on how I feel.

By the time I get to my school it’s about 6:30 – my first classes are always at 9:00 or 9:30 so I just go and have breakfast with my “group” – talk, joke around, etc and then we usually walk to class together from there. If I need to get something done like print out an assignment, scan something, or check my email, I do it then.

When I get out of my last class around 11:30, it is incredibly hard to fight the urge to stay on campus; and I lost that battle today; I went straight home and napped, lol. I try to make it a habit to have breakfast and lunch with the same group of my friends as a means of establishing a base so that I don’t get lost in the swarm of commuters who come and go without notice. Tomorrow I promised myself that I’d have lunch with them, mostly because a guy I like is going to be there too… lol.

Granted, I go to a commuter school so the vast majority of people here go through similar tribulations as me so I don’t feel nearly as isolated or alone. When I complain about shuttle service, three or four people chime in “oh my God, I know!” so we have a dualistic sense of community (Us – the Commuters, and Them – Public Transit). Plus our school schedules all of its events, club meetings, etc multiple times a day to accommodate the commuters.

A thing about commuting that I really like is that I’ve lived in dorms for certain programs, summer institutes, etc and I have found that your own shower/bathroom and your own bed without noisy dorm-mates is not a privilege or blessing to be taken lightly. My father isn’t going to blast DJ Snake at 2am while I’m trying to sleep the night before an exam. My little sister isn’t going to distract me while I’m studying. These are basically the things I’ve come to value – that, and the fact that I have a full tuition scholarship with subsidized housing from mom and dad meaning a completely debt free education.