Society views college as a time of learning independence through separation from parents and an uptake in responsibility. Presumably, many connect college to just students living on campus in dorms or apartments. Before attending UMBC, I never knew there was a concept of a commuter student. I had always envisioned college life with dorm life. Likewise, not knowing about commuters, I also did not know the stigma surrounding commuters. Commuters are sometimes viewed as dependent on parents because they still live with their parents. Through the experiences I share below, I hope this stigma is uplifted. Commuters make up the majority of the student population and are some of the most successful students on campus.
Getting to School.
There are two types of commuters: the early birds and the cutting-it-close students. The early birds come hours before their first class to study or find good parking. Commuter rush: when there's a sudden influx of commuters trying to find parking, peak time being 11 a.m.- 2 p.m., is the divider between the two types of commuters. The early birds usually avoid the commuter rush, while the cutting-it-close students all come at this time. During this time, parking is chaos. Many people are coming in, but not many are leaving. The peak time is also lunch time. Because of this, not many students are trying to leave.
Along with arrival times, commute times are also widely diverse. In my case, I only live 12-minutes away from campus. Because of this, even some traffic will not drastically make me late. Other commuters live 45-minutes or more away from campus. For them, traffic can make them very late to school.
Preparing for Classes.
If you are a commuter and leave something at home, in simple words, you are screwed. By driving back home, you lose your parking space and might face traffic on the way back. Everything consumes so much time. To prevent this, you have to check and recheck everything before leaving the house. However, you aren't totally at a loss. There are many resources on campus to save you from missing points on assignments or being barred from entering a class.
If you need to print, there are multiple places to get printing, copying and scanning. The library and CommonVision at the Commons are two of the places to get printing. The disadvantage, however, is that you have to use a red card to pay. In order to use the printing services on campus, there must be money on your campus card.
In case that you leave equipment or supplies at home, you will either need money or have friends to come to your aid. Most supplies are at the bookstore. Friends are usually the best option in this scenario. The supplies come free, they are guaranteed to have the supply or equipment you need.
Food.
Personally, I find it hard to make lunch to eat at school. I'm too tired to wake up earlier to make a meal, and I don't like carrying another bag for my lunch. On the contrast, buying food can get expensive. Commuters can get meal plans, but that is also expensive.
On the talk about buying food, sometimes you cannot even purchase food. Most students don't carry cash; they usually bring just their credit cards. Multiple times last semester, I wasn't able to eat because the credit card machines were down. From that experience, I always carry cash, but I find that unfair. There should be a substitute in place so that all students are able to eat.
Perks of Being a Commuter.
With these struggles, commuters are responsible for many unexpected events. On the bright side, there also many advantages of being a commuter.
For one thing, commuters not only have university food but if they live with parents, they may have healthier homemade foods. If they live on their own, commuters can eat out or buy the food they want to eat and make it.
Another perk is that with cars, there is more flexibility in going out. We don't have to get an Uber. We can just carpool to places.
The last perk is that it is also a lot cheaper to commute. If you're planning to go on to medical school or graduate school, it will be more cost-efficient to save as much as you can in undergrad.
