Headaches of Commuting: Ranting Raving and Explaining my Essentials
As you may already know, I commute daily to and from school, and to put it mildly, it’s a living hell. My 10-mile commute has ranged from an hour and forty-five minutes to as little as ten. With such wildly ranging times, I never know when to leave, and that’s just the beginning. In addition, there’s parking to contend with, and the fact that if you forget something you’re just screwed. While I may have only been at this for a single semester, and am by no means an expert, I have picked up a few things along the way to help everything go a little easier.
1 ALWAYS HAVE YOUR RAINGEAR
So this is a lesson I learned very quickly. While the people on campus are able to pop back to their dorm and change if they get wet, or grab an umbrella if it looks a little gloomy, that is not a luxury we have. To help avoid such situations I kept full raingear in my car at all times. This includes (bit is Not by any means limited to) a pair of rain booties and long socks (cause those things give killer blisters when you wear them with short socks #lessonlearned) an umbrella and a raincoat. I also keep one of those mini purse-sized umbrellas in my backpack, and that one day I was eating lunch and it started pouring out of nowhere I was the only dry person in sight. All of these are what I consider to be 100% non-negotiable items, and frankly, I have been glad for it many times.
2 KNOW SEVERAL PLACES TO PARK
As most people probably do, I fall into the routine of going and parking in the same place every day, for me this last semester it was the parking structure that was closest to my house. Infallibly I went and parked there every day, until the day that the arms broke. Luckily, I had left the house in plenty of time to frantically search for another spot, which I will come back to later, but I honestly had no idea where exactly I was supposed to go. I did end up finding another structure to park in, but either way, it was definitely an added stress not knowing where to park, and I’m glad if it happens again I will have backups.
3 LEAVE PLENTY OF TIME FOR MISHAPS
This semester my earliest class was 9:10, and I always made sure I was on campus by 8 at the very latest. This had very much to do with my lack of knowledge about what traffic and parking was going to be like for the day, but on those days when something bad did happen I had plenty of time to make up for it. On top of this, it gave me about an extra hour to either grab breakfast, meet with my study group, or even just study independently. It also gave me time to remember that I forgot to print off that paper due next period, and rush into the library and print it (MTSU’s free printing is a godsend). While my classes start much later this semester, and I definitely won’t be showing up at 8 in the morning, I think I will continue the trend of showing up an hour early, if for nothing else than to have a little me time.
4 KEEP EMERGENCY CASH
You will thank me for this later. One day I showed up to school, went to buy lunch (which can we just have a moment to talk about the price of food??? How do they expect college students to afford $10 a meal?? I’m broke!) and then I realized my wallet had fallen out of my bag. After looking all through my stuff and my car I surmised that it must be at home and faced a HORRIBLE decision. Do I go home, and get my much-needed wallet but lose my parking spot and skip lunch, or do I stay here and worry about it for the rest of the day, but keep my parking spot (although I still would’ve missed lunch cause y’know, no money). In the end, I decided to get the wallet and loose the parking spot, but I still made it to class on time, and she let us out after like 15 minutes so I did get to eat lunch! Honestly, that was probably the best coincidence ever.
While my list may seem rather short, these are simply the things that stand out to me that I learned in the first semester as they all have a specific story (or two) that sticks clearly in my mind. I know my list may not be extensive, but I’d love to hear in the comments what you guys as commuters have to say about it, and hey even if you’re not a commuter but you think you may have a helpful hint, or even if you just wanna share a funny/horror story about your own struggles, sometimes the best way to come together is to realize you’re not alone. Through it all, I would not trade commuting for a dorm (sharing a room/bathroom and rodent issues? I don’t think so…). I love living at home, as every night I have a space to come back to that is wholly my own, and I have a space separate from the academia to be in. I hope this helps, and I can’t wait to see y’all back here real soon!
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