<p>Well, I am pretty much set to go to SUNY Stony Brook, but i cannot decide between whether I should commute from home or dorm. For me, the Pros/cons of each are as follows:</p>
<p>Commute:
Pros:
-Save around $10,000 that could be used for other things, or simply saved.
-LIRR station within walking distance of my house in NYC.
-Under an hour of commuting time between home and Stony Brook.
Cons:
-Have to get up earlier. (hour or so, maybe more)
-At the mercy of the time schedule of the LIRR.
-Less Freedom since i'll still be at home.</p>
<p>Dorming:
Pros:
-Much more freedom.
-Interact with other students more, become more sociable & make more friends.
-More time for myself instead of getting up early and having to travel home.
Cons:
-Costs
-Heard that Stony Brook is like a Ghost Town on the weekends.
-More in Debt, & more limited on available money.</p>
<p>hey i am transferring this fall so i was thinking of the same thing and i heard the dorms are kinda stuffy i dont want to be with three people in one room</p>
<p>you can commute the first year and if that’s not working for you, apply for housing the next.</p>
<p>Are you sure the LIRR commute for you is less than an hour?</p>
<p>How would you use the LIRR to get there? I heard you have to take the LIRR from Jamaica, Queens and the other LIRR stations don’t take you there (the one on atlantic ave in brooklyn and the one at penn station in Manhattan). Can you really get there from any LIRR station? I don’t think I want to travel to Jamaica, Queens, just to get home on breaks.</p>
<p>You can technically get to Stony Brook from everywhere, but Jamaica’s the hub:</p>
<p>[MTA</a> LIRR - LIRR Map](<a href=“http://mta.info/lirr/Timetable/lirrmap.htm]MTA”>http://mta.info/lirr/Timetable/lirrmap.htm)</p>
<p>You can see by the map we’re the next-to-last stop on the blue Port Jefferson line; you can kind of figure it out from there, depending on where you are in NYC and what the easiest way is for you to hook up with the LIRR.</p>
<p>Chris</p>
<p>I prefer that you commute vs dorming. Dorming makes you lazy, since you get to sleep more. You save money, and you get a lot more done.</p>
<p>There is no Commute from NYC that is less than HR. Commuting to Huntington in Suffolk County is 45 mins. Jamaica is 1 Hour and 30 minutes. I lived in the Bronx so I didn’t even consider commuting.</p>
<p>Dorming at SBU is a little more costly but I think is worth it. Your college experience is more about you than how the school is. I made great friends at SBU. Friends that didn’t go home on weekends. A lot of us choose to stay at SBU but a good 20-30% of resident do go home on weekends.</p>
<p>Dorming is the true college experience.</p>
<p>As far as weekends go, yes, a lot of people do go home and the commuters aren’t around- but when you factor in how many thousands of people go to this school, believe me, there are plenty of people still around in the dorms! I’m from Brooklyn and at this point, I barely go home on weekends unless I have something important to get done there (maybe once a month if not less, and on breaks). Many of the very close friends I’ve made at school have been through the dorms, and the majority of social interactions happens there, too. They’re really cutting down on tripling so don’t worry too much about that.</p>
<p>Also, I commuted from Brooklyn (and only twice a week!) out to SBU this summer for a class for about two months, and quite honestly, it sucked. Of course it’s farther from Brooklyn than from Queens, but the commute from Queens is still a killer if you have to do it every day. Commuting by car is one thing but the LIRR? You essentially plan your whole life around when the train schedule runs.</p>
<p>My two cents is that if you can reasonably afford it, I would recommend you dorm. If money is a big issue, then, of course, you could make the commute work.</p>