<p>I’m a parent. Way back in my day, a friend (whose parents were immigrants) wouldn’t permit her to live on campus. She commuted for 2 years, the last 2 years her parents allowed her on campus. During the first 2 years she made a deal with her parents that she can spend nights on campus. Most “school nights” she was allowed to stay on campus were around mid-terms and finals when group study sessions often ran til midnight. She was also allowed 1 weekend/month on campus. By the second semester sophomore year it was more like every weekend, but by then her parents were more comfortable with the idea and had personally met her college friends.</p>
<p>Will your parents compromise to something like my friend did?</p>
<p>The MOST important thing for a commuter is to initiate study groups, join clubs, etc. This will make you feel more connected to resident life. It will give you friends to crash with on weekends. It will get you study buddies.</p>
<p>I agree that there are many positves associated with the experince of living away from home. There are also negatives, as already listed in other posts. What about a split? Our son completed his first 2 years at community college then transfered to his 4 year school. He has lived away since his transfer so he is getting the dorm experience. He found friends while in community college, though not all through school. He found some at work and some through the hardcore scene. He is happy with how things have gone, said that community was the best decision he ever made. He will graduate debt free and then move onto a masters program. I think that too much emphasis is put on the “college experience”. By that, I mean the entire process. The stress of “elite” or “prestige” schools and the high expectations put on kids. Not everyone is cut from the same mold and the end results are frequently surprising. We know kids who have gone to “prestige” schools working in very low level jobs and kids sho went to state schools that have really excelled in their careers.</p>
<p>“First of all, don’t drive, take the train. You’ll be able to get work done on the train so the time won’t be wasted. Secondly, go in at the crack of dawn, stay at campus all day, work in the library with your cellphone off, get a part-time job, don’t come home for dinner, take the train home really late at night (that should scare them pretty good) and go right to sleep when you get in. Wake up in the morning and head right back in. Don’t do anything to participate in family life, you’re too busy with work. Go in on weekends for study groups, ECs, parties, etc. If they get used to not seeing you around anyway, maybe they’ll get the idea that you have a life of your own and realize the silliness of it all.”</p>
<p>This. Minimize the time spent at home as much as possible, limiting it to sleeping there. Explore every option for financial aid possible to get into a dorm or off campus housing as soon as is feasible. Get a part time job on campus if possible.</p>
<p>Be sure that you add up the real cost savings after commuting expenses and the eating that you will need to do on campus. My take, based on my college and my daughter’s and grandchildrens’ college is that the only true additonal expense is lodging. My guess is that the lodging vs. the commuting expenses are about even. That said, I did one year at home and three in the dorm. It was easier to study at home, but I learned more about how to budget my time by living in the dorm. If you do have to drive, record material that you need to learn and play it while you commute - I was married (and living at home with husband and daughter) when I went to grad school and I used much of my commute time as study time.</p>
<p>DON’T COMMUTE!!! You need to be able to live on your own and get away from your smothering family. In the end, they will hinder you and cause you to be a 40 year old virgin. You have to tell your mother to “cut the cord” and let you live on campus. An hour commute will not only be aggravating, but it will also hurt the environment. I take early college courses and I have a 45 min commute from my high school to the college each day. While it’s nice to have early college credit, I HATE COMMUTING!!! You will be stuck in a limbo, high-school-esque world. I wish you luck and hope your over-bearing parents let you leave the nest.</p>
<p>Their money, their rules.
Go with your parents’ wishes until you can either prove to them you are responsible enough to live in the real world or you can afford to pay your own way.
Being upset and blaming them for your future dismal social life will not convince your mother you are mature.
Step it up at home, clean your room, offer to cook a meal, clean up after a meal, clean a bathroom-yes even the toilet and shower, do chores without her asking.
Mom isn’t ready to let you go, she is afraid you don’t need them, except for $$$.</p>
<p>If your parents don’t believe you are adult enough to live away from home, you should approach the situation in the most adult manner possible. I would prepare a packet of documents which supports your case.</p>
<p>Start with the financials. Parking at Drexel is expensive. As is gas for the commute and wear and tear on the car. Insurance may or may not increase with the additional mileage as well as the fact the car will be parked in a less than ideal area all day. Make a careful, accurate, and thorough accounting of the actual costs to commute. Then, if your initial bid for independence goes unheard, you can offer to help defray the additional cost (which you will have already proven is less than they are probably imagining, thus making one of their arguments less valid) with money you make working on campus.</p>
<p>If I am correct, the first semester classes at Drexel are chosen by your adviser and you have no input as to what or when they are. It is entirely possible that you will end up with at least one very early class and getting up that early will make it difficult to be successful. </p>
<p>I would also get as many concrete, factual examples to prove that living in dorms is beneficial. Also, include anecdotal evidence from people which supports your argument, i.e., how living in the dorms in either an honors situation or a living/learning environment has helped kids do better. It is certainly true that a lot of the group projects and work takes place in the evenings or weekends. Do they really want you to be gone for sometimes 12+ hours a day? Or driving back from campus at night in PA winters? Or driving there and back sometimes 6-7 days a week? Just things to think about and list. Finally, you could try now to find a potential roommate who would be acceptable to them. It is a little early but might be possible through this site or facebook or people you know who are attending Drexel.</p>
<p>Make it clear that you appreciate their position, but that you feel they are not looking at the whole picture.</p>
<p>Time = Money. Thrifty people can understand that.</p>
<p>Bottom line for me: if I had to commute 1 hour each way for a BIG SALARY it would pain me and grieve me. If I to do it while paying someone else, my head would explode. </p>
<p>Think of it this way: 10 hours per week (assuming no delays) times 32 weeks per year of school is 320 hours that you will never, ever recover.</p>
<p>Time is the hardest thing to conserve as a student. If I were told to commute an hour, I would try to find a job and forget school until my circumstances changed. Sure, anything’s possible, we’re all capable of adapting, yada yada yada. But it will make a difficult challenge (college) many times more difficult.</p>
<p>^Also, do you already have a car? If not, you can live without one on campus, offsetting the cost. You would also save on insurance, repairs and gas. At near $3 gallon, that’s got to mean something.</p>
<p>Throw a tantrum. Threaten to smash dishes, cover yourself in feces, or leave a mess everywhere you go. Anything to make them fear living with you for the next 4 years.</p>
<p>I would delay going to college before I’d commute for my freshman year. In fact, with our own kids, we ruled out schools in which spending four years on-campus was unlikely. College is not just classes. It’s a commitment to be engaged and involved in ways that could change your life for the long term. You might ask your parents whether your family would be the same had you lived an hour away from them while growing up and just commuted to their home for meals and scheduled meetings?</p>
<p>Please listen to me carefully. As many of the more seasoned admissions counselors here can attest to, higher ed literature has shown that being a commuter makes success in college far more difficult. That is a fact. Not only from the academic aspect but most importantly in building up social capital and fully learning the resources that will be available to you at your university. </p>
<p>This really is a judgment call and people will argue both sides based on their own biases/experiences.</p>
<p>I understand money is an issue and understand your parents perspective so here is what I would suggest. Live on campus your freshman year. That is the most important year to live there from the social aspect, it will facilitate the transition, it will help you get to know the university. After that, live at home and you will find it much easier to handle it after a year of living on campus, you might find that you can just spend all day at the library studying or crash a freshman year buddy’s dorm/apt after a long night of studying (or during weekends!). Also, the RA suggestion is great if you could get free housing that way, but again for that you probably would have to live on campus freshman year.</p>
<p>I haven’t had a problem with success in college as a commuter so far. Granted I’m not taking harder courses yet, but even then I imagine it won’t be too bad. I have a fair amount of free time as it is, so when I have harder classes I’ll just devote more time to studying (I don’t do well in group studying anyway).</p>
<p>You all make it sound like commuting is akin to being banished to the gulag.</p>
<p>One issue that I don’t think anyone has expressed is that if the weather is bad do your parents really want you to commute?</p>
<p>Earning and contributing money so that you can dorm may help your parents see that you are responsible and perhaps they would be willing to let you dorm after seeing that you will have to stay late at times to work on projects etc…</p>
<p>One way to save money so the dorm is more affordable is to give up the car. Don’t just park it, sell it. No more maintenance, gas, insurance, parking fees. Then the RA suggestion is a really good one after that. You definitely can get through college without a car; on many campuses it is just a hassle. Neither of my kids has (will have) a car in college. Plus… if you live on campus, you would have more time for a part time job (that time when you are NOT commuting). Another way to offset the cost.</p>
<p>Obviously the cultural hurdle is a bigger one. Do you have any friends with parents who could talk to your mom? Can you get statistics from Drexel on % of freshman that live on campus, and point out how few students are commuting (I assume it is few)? </p>
<p>And… your parents are making lots of excuses. But underneath it all, maybe they just would miss you and want you around. Take it from a parent, having a kid leave for college ranks right up there as one of the hardest thing that ever happens to them. You need to help them see that college is not just about coursework, but also building the skills to live on your own eventually. It is a step between living with your parents and being out as an adult. Maybe you can help them see that. </p>
<p>You also might cut a deal that you will make more effort to live up to their expectations for what you need to do to live on your own for the remainder of this year and the summer (is your room a disaster? Do you do your own laundry? Do you ever help clean the bathroom? Clean up your own dishes? Offer to cook for your family one night a week?). Your comment that your parents are “constantly nagging you” might mean that some self reflection on this would be a good idea. If you can see that you have had some failings in that area, tell them so and let them know you really want to work to gain their confidence on this as part of an arrangement to let you live on campus next fall.</p>
<p>Man, I really don’t understand your parents. I would of already decided to not pay for your tuition and make you get a job. You are an immature little baby and your crying over something that will allow you to be debt free reflects the fact that you are not mature enough to go to school. </p>
<p>Maybe you should look into community colleges nearby until you grow up some. </p>
<p>Is commuting really that bad? This is a serious question, by the way! Because I’m transferring to a new school next year and will be commuting. </p>
<p>People make it seem like it is the worst thing in the world. I mean, I didn’t find any enjoyment living on campus for 2 & 1/2 years. It was miserable living in a dorm with noisy, messy, and disrespectful people and not having anyone to hang out with on weekends. And paying thousands of dollars for dining hall food that lacked variety – nuts! Plus, you might not even find enjoyment on campus because after a while, it does get kind of boring. But it varies from people.</p>
<p>I don’t know who I could side with – the OP or the parents. I understand you want to gain your own freedom OP. Not that there is anything wrong with it. But if you really do want to live on campus, you need to convince them and SHOW them that you will be responsible. Convince them to dorm at least your first year.</p>
<p>@Mushaboom, as a commuter, it really isn’t. Considering your comments about dorm life, you might actually come to like it.</p>
<p>I feel like a good portion of the people saying commuting is the worst thing ever have never actually commuted. Meanwhile I’ve lived in the dorms, and I’m commuting. Both have their pros and cons.</p>