With the college transition comes excitement, doubt, and a million different decisions you have to face as a so-called "responsible adult." What are you putting down as your major? Are you seriously considering taking biology your first semester? What kind of loans do you want to take out? And, when it comes time, do you want to dorm? Do you have the money and bravery to live with a complete stranger on the campus of a completely strange school, or do you want to risk your social life in an attempt to commute?
Are you any less of a college student if that's the decision you make?
“It’s a completely different experience for you,” my friend tells me on her move-in day. “For you it’s just more school.”
I’m put off by her words, and for the next week I can’t shake them off. Am I really missing out on “the college experience” because of my decision not to dorm?
What I’m really missing out on is sleep...
Commuter students don’t so much miss out on “the college experience;” mostly we’re missing out on the extra hour of sleep we spend on our commute. For me, a 12 p.m class means a 9 a.m alarm. While my friends are waking up at 11:45 and carting themselves off to class practically still in their pajamas, I’m making my hour and a half commute.
But…
While those who dorm struggle to finish their 50 page reading the night before, my four train commute allows me to go to bed knowing I can finish my gender studies reading on the way to class in the morning. Especially if the trains are running late.
Which they always inevitably are...
The E train can smell your anxiety; it knows you’re running late.
But the short answer is NO...
It’s a different experience, sure, but when it comes to school-wide events, I get the same opportunity to participate as my counterparts who are dorming. Despite the subway lines that separate me from Hunter’s rainbow bridge, you can find me doing brunch on Lexington Ave and in Greenwich for a night out…hanging out with the same people who are dorming at Brookdale.
So shoutout...
To my fellow commuters! Here's to assigned readings on the subway, here's to two trains just to get to class, and here's to a fantastic college experience-- with your only roommate being your cat!
