Commuting 20 minutes away from campus - is it really a big deal?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

Hey friends,

I’ll be transferring in as a junior this year. I’m a little late to the housing fiasco, so I might just grab a place in Walnut Creek (which is 20 minutes away) and commute with my car and/or BART.

The upside is that I’ll have access to my friend’s place with a key (he’s charging me $50 a month for me to chill at his place whenever, but not actually sleep or live there). He lives 5 minutes off campus.

Having said that, can anyone give me their experience of commuting, or friends that commuted? My biggest priority (after grades) is meeting as many people as possible, participating in events, joining clubs, etc.

My rationale is: since I’ll pretty much spend the entire day at school, whether it be in the library or my friend’s place, a 20 minute commute wouldn’t hurt my social and academic life.

Am I being too optimistic here?

Thanks for the input!

2

@ElevatedThinking

You need to add 40 minutes of walking back and forth everyday between BART station and your classes as the station is located on the west side of the campus.

3

@StevenToCollege I was thinking of doing Walnut Creek -> Rockridge Station -> take 51B right in front of the campus, which might save me some time.

4

I sometimes commute from home after a weekend there. I have a similar commute ~30 minutes. But you need to add up traffic/congestion/waiting/BART delays/bus delays. It’s definitely reasonable but you need to schedule your classes in a way that you have a lot of cushion time in case you’re running a little late. So hopefully you don’t have to get 8ams or 9ams since you have to add more time than 20 minutes to your commute.