<p>Worried mother here seeking the advice of other parents and students. </p>
<p>Assuming that some upperclassmen have cars on campus, how difficult is it to get a ride to NJ for Thanksgiving break? I have been checking out Amtrak and they are pricey right now because Sunday after Thanksgiving is a blackout day for discounts. How far in advance do I need to purchase Amtrak tickets for Thanksgiving? </p>
<p>What do female students use to carry their laptops and books around campus: backpack, messenger bag, etc? </p>
<p>Do most students stay on campus for fall break? I see it is only one day and it is the week before Parents Weekend. </p>
<p>NJMom, there are many NJ students at AU. My daughter will be a Soph this year, we are also from NJ. Amtrak is expensive, but sometimes it better than driving the 3-4 hours each way in the same day.</p>
<p>If you are near Philly or NY, my D has used both the Bolt bus service and Megabus service. The further out you book, the cheaper they are. They both have internet access on the bus. Once she hit traffic and the trip to NY was pretty bad, both other trips weren’t so bad. She also takes Amtrak, and the early morning train is less expensive. </p>
<p>There are lots of NJ kids at AU and if she meets someone with a car, great, but most of the students my D has met do not have cars on campus. The parking in DC is so difficult, it is easier to take metro most places.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about getting to NJ, but I can take a stab at the other questions. My D is going to be a soph and, last year, just carried things in a giant purse. But for this coming year, she ordered a really “girly” backpack. Whatever your D likes should be fine!</p>
<p>Re: fall break. My D’s roommate went to visit a friend, but D had plenty of friends still on campus. It’s just a long weekend, really.</p>
<p>We’re from CA but D went to a friend’s in NJ for Thanksgiving break. However expensive Amtrak was, it was cheaper than a flight home. Also, last year winter break started less than 2 weeks later. They’ve changed the schedule this year so maybe we will fly her home for Thanksgiving. The bus is a lot cheaper and she used it over the summer to visit friends in NJ but I encouraged her to take the train at break so that she wasn’t stuck in traffic for hours.</p>
<p>She carries her things around in a big tote style bag. It seems to work for her. It’s not a big campus so they’re never too far from their own residence hall.</p>
<p>For fall break, she went with a group of friends to the Poconos. I think parents that visited a couple of weekends earlier left a car for them to use and then picked it up again over Parents Weekend. If they didn’t go away, I’m sure they’d have no shortage of things to do locally.</p>
<p>Cars in DC are a pain. My son is in DC this summer for an internship and took his car. In order to park on the streets in DC he had to prove that the car owner (me) had a residence outside DC. That said, he’s keeping his car for the coming semester, now that we have proved non-residence, because he’s got an apartment off campus and an internship during the school year. The first two years he took the bus or the train. Bus to NYC is lot cheaper, but can get stuck in traffic especially on holiday weekends. We tried to look at his course schedule and figure out off times to travel - If there’s no classes early on Monday, consider coming back on Monday morning. Also, sometimes classes on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving are canceled, my son ended up wanting to come home earlier than we thought so we changed things around.</p>