Before college, I had never used public transportation. At least not in the United States.

So, when I moved out-of-state for college and didn't have a car or anyone to drive me around, I had to learn really quickly. And I did.

I was lucky enough to live on campus my first year and have all of my classes within walking distance from the residential hall I lived in. This meant that the only time I used public transportation was to go to a couple of sporting events on the main Tempe campus, which was only a couple stops away from the light rail next to my campus.

Now, as a sophomore, I live a 10-minute drive off campus and am NOT willing to pay for the expensive parking passes on my campus.

And as the saying goes, "You gotta do, what you gotta do."

For the past six months, I have been taking the bus almost every day to and from work, to and from school, to and from my internships, etc and it has been HARD.

I am constantly running into obstacles or problems with the bus, whether it's because it is really late or really early, whether there are no seats and I'm extremely tired or there is just too much traffic.

But something I have learned to enjoy about the bus rides I take is that it's a nice gap of time in which I can catch up with some reading, listening to my podcasts and writing articles on my phone.

It's also pretty easy to enjoy these bus rides when they include cute little puppies that are sitting patiently with their owners.

However, I think my favorite part has to be just observing people.

Everyone had their own lives and has their own things going on, whether it's personally, professionally, mentally, emotionally, etc. Everyone has their own story and it just amazing to me that no matter how different or similar everyone is, all of our paths happen to cross on a daily basis.

I think the biggest takeaway I have learned from public transportation is that it's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Yes, it does suck because of longer commutes. Yes, it does run on its own time instead of mine. But it also saves me money and I get to do this all while doing my part to minimize my carbon footprint. It's cheesy but true.

You can really make an impact from taking public transportation to and from school alone. Imagine what you can do if you use it as your constant form of transportation?