When I first began applying to colleges, I remember I always said I wanted to go far away. I wanted that full college experience, with a cool dorm, a tiny bed, and all that, but that’s not what what I ended up with. I chose a college so close to home that it would be pointless to live on campus. Everyday I face the same things and they just don’t seem to get old. Here’s a list of 10 things that every commuter student deals with everyday that every other student probably has no clue of

1. Getting up extra early.

The biggest struggle, depending how far away you live from your campus. While everyone else who lives on campus is waking probably 45 minutes before class, you’re waking up two hours earlier than everyone else just so that you can have time to get ready and do everything you need to before you leave. Losing two hours of sleep isn’t easy! That’s precious time lost for no reason

2. Making wawa runs becomes a routine

Despite the fact that you wake up what could be hours earlier, it seems like you still never have time for breakfast. You have your mind set on heading out and getting to school early, that you don’t have time to grab a bite so you stop at wawa, grab your coffee, your sizzli and you’re set tim lunch (I hope!

3. Getting stuck in traffic

Here’s your reason for getting up so early and leaving in a rush! If you ever take major highways or state routes during rush hours, like me, you’ll find yourself sitting in traffic for a good minute and wondering if you’re even going to make it to school on time.

4. Never finding parking

So you make it to school on time and you’re chilling until you realize that there’s literally no parking ANYWHERE. As a commuter, you pay for a parking pass but you’re never guaranteed parking and that sucks. You circle around what could be every single commuter lot on campus

5. Parking tickets

After searching every parking lot on campus and you still haven’t found parking, giving up is all there’s left to do. By giving up, I mean you finally decide to stop looking and you park on the street. This is the trickiest part though! You park somewhere where you don’t see any signs, next thing you know you’ve got a $150 parking ticket under your name. Okay maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but hey, they really are pricey!

6. Having nowhere to take naps

Whenever you’ve got breaks in between classes, you’ll try to keep busy or you’re trying to relax by taking a good ‘ol nap to make up for the sleep you lost in the morning. Problem is, you have nowhere to sleep. You’re either sleeping in your car, taking a nap on a table in the commons or hunting your friends down for their dorm keys so you can steal their bed for an hour

7. Missing cool activities on campus

All the cool stuff on campus usually happen at night, when all classes are over and everyone’s ready to just relax. By this time, you’re already home doing homework or getting ready for bed. if you do plan to make it to the event, you’d have to stick around campus all day (depending how far you live) because it’s a waste of gas and time to go home and come back later.

8. What’s a meal plan?

Commuters are never really taken into consideration when it comes to a meal plan. Since we don’t live on campus we don’t have a meal plan and if there is one available for us, it’s beyond expensive. You eventually find yourself wasting up to $10 on lunch on a daily basis because food at school is way to expensive and you never have time to go out and get lunch off campus.

9. Backpack the best friend

You never have an actual place to keep your books so believe me you’ll find yourself carrying a huge backpack that probably weighs as much as you. You always have the option of keeping your books in your car (if you drive). If you don’t drive and are dropped off at school, you really do struggle, but you get used to it after a while. You’ll also find yourself carrying multiple bags which is even rougher because you can never keep track of them

10. Becoming broke (literally)

Yeah, as college students, we say we’re broke, but nobody’s more broke than commuter students. Between putting gas in your car and buying lunch everyday, you find that you waste more money than the average college student meaning yes, we’re literally BROKE.

In my second year of being a commuter student, I’ve found that these are the struggles we face everyday but there are definitely ways around it to make the experience better. Don’t get discouraged by it, just enjoy it and embrace it! Once you’ve gotten used to the commuter life, you won’t want to trade it for anything!