<p>Can anyone who has commuted to college give me some idea of what their experience was like?</p>
<p>I’ve been a commuter since I started. </p>
<p>It has its ups and downs. You don’t really get the “college experience” but at a certain point I’d say you stop caring about that and focus on your academics and the fact that you need a job after graduation. </p>
<p>I basically show up for class, hang in between breaks with friends, spend a few extra hours afterwards to gripe about the day with friends and go home. I sleep, do homework, and do laundry on the weekends. That’s about it. It depends on who your friends are. </p>
<p>My friends are parents + engineering majors + people who work.</p>
<p>I had fun for a while with people my first year, but that really grows old. </p>
<p>I’d suggest joining a fraternity/sorority if you’re a commuter and want social fun. I don’t think I have any time to do anything fun.</p>
<p>I commute from home. It’'s so easy to skip class because of the commute time I have (30-45 mins) so that’s definitely a con. Parking is a war here, as I go to a commuter school. </p>
<p>If you go to a commuter school, the college experience is hard to find and I’d recommend just commuting. Weekends get boring, as people go home and campus is dead. I dormed at a commuter school and it was just seriously boring. Seriously.</p>
<p>Would you consider a college with 46% of undergraduates commuting to be a commuter school?</p>
<p>Not sure if there’s an official number on what a commuter school is, but if you attend a fairly large school, I think having 54% students live on-campus would have a pretty lively campus. If you go to a small school, you’ll probably be very bored on weekends. Funny, that number is the same as my old university (46% commuting).</p>
<p>In the fall, I’ll be going to a commuter school. Since all of my friends are going away, do you ever get to hang out with yet-to graduate high school students or people that graduated before you but attend the same commuter school during the weekends?</p>
<p>I’m going to need to start doing that soon, well the sad thing is that I won’t be able to just access my high school friends (I’ve been making junior/sophomore/freshman friends) as easily with this barrier~I plan to go back to the high school campus quite a few times during the year, well likely to the extracurricular activities / academic competitions to aid the members… (Yeah, the sad thing is that this year there aren’t any seniors in any of the academic competitions I did except me, and I found my own class kind of boring / all going off)</p>
<p>46% of the undergrad population commuting doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a commuter school. I go to a school with about 11,000 students, only 4,000 of which actually live on campus, and it’s definitely not a commuter school.</p>
<p>I lived on campus for the first year or so. I eventually decided that commuting would be easier on my wallet. Commuting is cheaper and you’ll probably sleep better (dorms are loud). On the downside, your social life basically consists of the people that are in your major and whatever friends that you have outside of school. (This wasn’t really a problem for me because I had already had the “college experience” and already tired of it.) Social groups/activities are ideal, but I’m usually ready to head home by the time I’m finished with class. I find it’s harder to get up and drive to class. Whether or not you will have to drive through bad weather (snow/ice) is also something to consider.</p>
<p>tangentline:</p>
<p>I honestly haven’t seen anybody from HS since I graduated. If you have time once you start classes, I suppose that’s an option. You’re likely to be more preoccupied with college, though.</p>