With the fall quarter wrapping up at my school, DePaul University, I can now take a deep sigh of relief with finals ending and having my first college courses under my belt. After a seemingly endless ten whole weeks passing by, all of the hard work that I invested in my classes have surely paid off. Needless to say the next month and a half-long break will be spent making up for the hours of sleep that I exchanged for frantic studying and paper-writing.

From that description, I sound like a typical college student, right? These past ten weeks, I have become the king of procrastination and forgot what pleasure one gets from eight hours of sleep. But I guess one thing you could say sets me apart from the average college student is that this quarter, I commuted to and from DePaul from Chicago’s northwest suburbs, and next quarter I will be moving on-campus, simply because I never took into account the hellish process of commuting in Chicago’s grueling winters. So as I prep to make the extremely-delayed transition to moving on my own in the 3^rd largest city in the country, I will also take into account the lessons commuting have taught me.

Perhaps one thing I have learned from being a commuter is the life-long lesson known as patience.

Chicago’s public transit system is one that’s expansive in coverage but spotty in being on time. Commuting forces you to be patient with the moment that you’re currently in. No matter how much you dread being awake and feeling hopeless as the day goes by, it gives you the ability to persevere through the hell of the day. And because of that, I have gained a greater sense of patience for whatever life throws at me.

Commuting has also shown me the importance of planning. Everyday I double check the weather and my bag that I have every book and assignment I need for the day, and that there’s enough buffer time should I run into delays on public transit. This is because I know damn well that if I don’t prepare ahead of time, I don’t have the luxury of walking a block away and get something I forgot. Because of commuting, I now have a fitted mindset of how I can create a good game plan that diverts away stress from my ever-busy life in Chicago.

Looking back on this quarter, I now know it is tantamount that you have a planner to keep everything in order. College work piles up on you quickly, and it’s important you stay on it, because if you’re not on it, it’ll be hell trying to catch up. And that’s one of the beauties of commuting, in that since you have to revolve your schedule mostly about what time you’ll make your train, it sharpens your organization skills.

Though my time as a commuter will be coming to an end, I will never forget what strengths it has given me, and I’ll be glad taking it with me as I move on-campus. And though I’m stopping the daily journeys commuting because I never took into account the harsh wintry conditions that Chicago harbors, needless to say I am more organized, planned, and patient than I have ever been.

Okay, I’m going to leave it here. I need to pack (and study)!