The other day, I picked my sister up from college to take her to a job interview. She is living on campus at the same school that I’ve been commuting to for the past two years. I asked if she was going to come home after the interview. She responded, “You don’t understand! I have another life at school!” I was really caught off-guard at first, but now I understand what she means.

She chose to live on campus so that she could get the “college experience.” Of course, I am jealous of her, but I am happy that she is experiencing what I never did. Going to college means two very different things, depending on whether you commute or you live on campus.

For me, as well as a majority of other students that commute to school, college means going to class, working a part-time (maybe even a full-time) job and still dealing with everything going on at home with our families. You try your best to balance all of this, but you still wish you had no responsibilities. The main difference between high school and college for us is our class schedule.

Making friends outside of class is really difficult. When you’re only at school for class, you miss the social aspect of college. Whenever my best friends would come home from school during winter break or the summer, it was always a little depressing to see them have so many new, close friends. Whether it be roommates or sorority sisters, I knew that there would be times when I would have to compete for their attention. This lifestyle is not easy, but I have become accustomed to it. I know that I won’t have memories and stories to tell of crazy weekends because they never happened.

College is an entirely different experience for the students that live on campus. For them, going to college means a lot more than just attending classes. It means having a life on campus. Meeting new people and finding where you fit in is so important. These people get to put their regular lives’ on hold while they live their college lives. Think about how many times you hear people say, “back in college I…” That phrase is usually followed by a statement of how much beer they drank or how little sleep they got. By the time they graduate and try to find a job, they have no idea what the real world is like. Of course, not everyone who lives on campus fits this mold exactly, and there are some commuter students who are still able to have the classic college experience.

There’s no way of knowing which college environment a student would succeed in. The student that is extremely involved with a great social life might have a higher GPA. You never know who will be the one hired for the job. What you learn and experience in college matters most; you are there for your education. After two years of wishing I lived on campus and had the college experience, I’m finally realizing that I’m probably better off without it.