For many reasons we ended up not living on campus after our freshman year or we are just a couple of miles away, we commute to campus just like we would commute to a job. Here are a few struggles that college commuters can relate to this semester. #thestruggleisreal
Waking up Late... alarm didn't go off.
I have always faced this problem of waking up late and snoozing my alarm every morning for an extra "five minutes of sleep". Waking up late is the first struggle that commuters relate to because if you wake up late; means that you will commute late to class and you will then perhaps end up missing class and class point. We can't just wake up and run to class as someone that dorms on campus would.
Can't ever find parking.
Before the semester began, I spent over 800 dollars for a parking space at a parking garage that told me they could sell all these parking passes and still manage to fit all of us. My parking garage is about a 15-minute walk from my first classes and I have learned this the hard way: leave home as early as possible. I have tried parking at other garages that are closer and ended up leaving because I couldn't find parking, then showed up to my parking garage and wasted about 30 minutes going around in circles trying to find a parking space until I had to wait for someone to leave so I could take over. Talk about universities ripping us off.
Antisocials Club
Believe it or not, being a commuter to campus can be quite intimidating since you feel that you are being left out and become antisocial in many scenarios. Especially if it's barely your freshman year and you expect people to already know each other since they leave on campus. Our high school friends ended up parting ways and chose other schools or perhaps chose to not attend college and we are in the middle of whether we should even bother making new friends or just becoming antisocial for a whole semester.
Wake up attend class, go straight back home and repeat.Â
Just like the third struggle of becoming quite antisocial, this struggle becomes a routine. This is an awful routine to keep and could perhaps lead to depression. We might think "why should I bother getting involved on campus, if I don't live on campus" or perhaps think that the whole getting involved on campus statement just doesn't apply to us. We should be the group that thinks about getting involved on campus, especially because we don't live here and it's going to make this college experience a one of a kind.
Getting a full time job to stay busy.Â
This is the worst mistake you can make especially your first semester of college. It is completely understandable that some might need to work a full-time job for many financial reasons. But if you are choosing to work a full-time job just because "you just attend your weekly classes and have a lot of free time" this is a very wrong path. When I was working at Tmobile my first semester of college I wasn't focused enough on my classes and would sometimes choose to work rather than to focus on my education and my college experience. I did not care for any events or concerts, football games, or dances and missed out on many opportunities to get involved and make friends. You chose to continue your education so you could someday obtain a full-time stable job with your degree and focus on that later down the road. You are between the ages of 17-23 so you shouldn't be choosing this path so early.
Skipping class becomes the worse drug addiction.
You are most likely to skip class if one of your other classes that day gets canceled. "Is it really worth it to drive to class today since I only have a 40-minute class?" and it becomes worse than a drug addiction after that.
Huge gaps between classes
Huge gaps between classes are a complete nightmare especially when all the Starbucks are full of people and there's nowhere to sit at the library... you have nowhere to go. For others, this is perhaps the time where they get their homework done, but huge gaps between classes are such a nightmare for some.
