College life in the USA is a culture all its own. Stereotypes fly - especially among pre-college students - about university life, frat culture, dorm goings-on and more. People love writing little fanfictions about their favorite characters meeting in a college setting. Movies are made about college-aged students having life-changing realizations. There just seems to be this great appeal about teenagers stepping into the adult world for the first time, in charge of their schedules, having new responsibilities, away from the eyes of their parents for semesters at a time. Only...that isn't the case for every college student.
Being a commuter student, especially at a private college where the vast majority of students live on campus, is a subculture of college life that you don't hear romanticized in stories. Okay, you do hear about those commuters that have their own apartments and are struggling artists or activists that get into various shenanigans, but certainly not the commuter students that live with their parents. And I'm here to set the record straight about commuter life for living-at-home students.
Sure, there are some negatives. Early morning classes mean less sleeping in and more commuting traffic. Many dormers have no idea who you are (which in a small school is a bit weird) because you don't live on campus. Commuters do get the short end of the stick when it comes to after-class event scheduling.
But there are a lot of benefits to living at home that make it so worth not living in a dorm. I have my own bed, my own bathroom, my own shower. I still get home-cooked meals, I don't have to deal with bad roommates, I don't need to worry about paying for printing my schoolwork. I can experience as much of college life as I want to without any of the negatives. Sure commuting can be a bit irritating in terms of traffic and having to wake up earlier but I get to collapse in my own bed at the end of the day and that alone is worth it to me. I'm not a person that's wild about parties and things so missing that doesn't bother me at all. Someone might argue that I can't make friends as easily with people that live on campus. Yes, perhaps that might be true, but I do have some very good friends among my fellow commuter students. Like I said, it's a subculture all its own, and I love it. I get support and commiseration and friendship among other commuters and it's great.
And above all, I save A LOT of money by living at home. With that benefit, the 'college experience' could be completely closed to me and I can't see myself being that hung-up about it.
