Dear dorm students, somethings you should know about us commuters:

We are jealous of your relationships with your roommates.

We have no idea which weird dutch name is associated with which dorm building (which all look the same to us).

If you ask us to meet you in your dorm we will get lost.

We don't know near as many people in campus as you do. We do not have the social connections that dorms allow.

We would love to have lunch with you, but we cannot always go into the dining halls, unless we are among those that have those dining plans, but they are kind of expensive, and not worth it to some of us.

We do know cheap food in the cafes is the best though...

Some of us do not hold an opinion on which dinning hall is better. We do not know the difference, and frankly, we don't care very much. A lot of the time we just get whatever food we can. It can be very annoying to have to figure out how to pack a lunch for college, as in what to carry it in, when to eat it, if it makes more sense to keep it in our car for a while, or take it to class to have afterward.

Please don't complain to us about waking up early. You can get up twenty minutes before a class and be okay to get there on time. We have to take drive time into account, which can get a bit tricky if the traffic is horrific. Or when the winter season comes upon us, and we have to deal with the thick blankets of snow that now encase our cars and complicate the roads even more.

We can't really sympathize with your cold feet from walking from your dorm to class. It took our heat twenty minutes to kick in on the half hour drive.

Sorry we're not on campus in the later hours of the day. We would rather be home and far away from school. That's why we're not in the dorms. If we are in your group for a project, please take this into account.

Don't always assume we will be available. We are not constantly connected to the on goings of our school like you are. We have lives outside of it, as in our homes and friends who do not go to our college.

We may be saving money by not living on campus, but we still spend a lot of money on gas. We like to limit the amount of trips we have to make between home and school.

Your dorm stories entertain us, but please go more into detail because we don't always know who or what you are taking about, seeing as how we don't live in that kind of setting.

We laugh at your privacy problems and relish your bad roommate stories.

Dear Professors, please remember:

If we are late, we will blame traffic. Or snow.

If you give us group projects, we will miss some of those annoying late night meetings that our group insists on having in their dorm buildings.

We will not be able to answer those survey questions on whether or not we have good roommate values.

We have no dorm stories to tell you.

We don't go to most campus activities, please do not associate them with assignments.

We do not always expect you to remember that we commute, but when we tell you, please take it into account. It's not always fun to miss out on the dorm component of college, but it's the choice we made, and we're sticking to it.