<p>cars are great if you live close to home so then you can just drive home whenever you feel like it. otherwise it's just not worth the parking expenses.</p>
<p>I almost decided to not bring my car to school with me because over and over again people said, "You don't really need a car." </p>
<p>I'm glad that I did not listen to all those people. Having a car on campus is an excellent idea. For one thing, you can leave campus whenever you want. Also, its fun to go off campus for something to do and you'll appriciate being the driver: its a good way to meet new people and make friends. </p>
<p>Take a car. You'll appriciate it.</p>
<p>SoCal's public transportation is despicable. Are you sure we're talking about the same SoCal?</p>
<p>
[quote]
I almost decided to not bring my car to school with me because over and over again people said, "You don't really need a car." </p>
<p>I'm glad that I did not listen to all those people. Having a car on campus is an excellent idea. For one thing, you can leave campus whenever you want. Also, its fun to go off campus for something to do and you'll appriciate being the driver: its a good way to meet new people and make friends. </p>
<p>Take a car. You'll appriciate it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You are right onto what I'm thinking. I'm thinking the only reason college tour guides tell you this is so that have fewer parking problems, and it makes the parents happy.</p>
<p>
[quote]
With the great availability of public transit in SoCal
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Great availablity...please! You probably haven't even been out here. The rail lines inadequately serve the sprawled-out metro area. Inadequate is probably too strong a word. Only a few of the top attractions is served by a rail line, and many cities aren't as well. Some of them won't see service until 2014. The bus cannot take you everywhere. Weekend service on rail lines is sparse. If the availability is so great, why is the system hardly ever used? Public transit in LA is horrid if you don't live and/or work near a station.</p>
<p>And for my college car plans:
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo-I will maybe bring one, they don't want you to bring cars-but the bus system only operates in the city of SLO, not to nearby beach cities where I would want to go to.
Cal Poly Pomona-I definitely want to bring one. This is a commuter campus with nothing entertaining within walking distance. You need a car to go places. Also, I live less than 15 minutes away.
Cal State Fullerton-Definitely. This is a hardcore commuter campus (only 2% of students, 7% of freshmen live on campus), and there's not much to do within walking distance. I may not get a dorm as there are very few, so I won't have a choice.
San Diego State-I want to. However, SD's trolley system sounds interesting, and their rail lines are better than LA's. Still, it doesn't take you everywhere in SD that I would want to go to.
UC Irvine-I would want to. There are some nearby attractions, but I think it would be within reasonable to drive. You will need a car to get to most OC attractions, and it's also closish to home.
UC Riverside-I do want a car, I live reasonably close and I have family nearby. There is not much to do in Riverside, although the local area around UCR is improving.
UC Santa Barbara-I want to; I don't know how good local transit is. But there is an Amtrak station in SB that I can use to get home.
UC Santa Cruz-I have found out bringing a car is impossible for underclassmen, so I hope I can get an appeal. I honestly don't know how anyone can get home. The nearest airport is 30 miles away, and there is no local rail service. The buses only take you to the city.
Pitzer College-I live close to the Covina rail station, which takes you to Claremont. The Claremont station is next to the colleges, so I may switch off between the rail and the car. It shows that the LA transit system only truly works if you can get between points A and B without any car.
University of Redlands-I want one. There's not much to do in Redlands, and the nearest fun places are Palm Springs (45 min away) and LA (1 hour away). And the distance is by car. I think there's a rail station in Redlands, but I don't know where the train goes.
USC-I would want a car. The campus is located in the most dangerous part of LA, so I wouldn't walk at night. There may be bus service. I live closish as well.
Either LMU, Santa Clara, or Univ. of San Francisco-LMU, I do want a car; USF and SCU-maybe not, as BART is supposedly good.</p>
<p>Re: parking at UCSC</p>
<p>It is almost certainly not worth the trouble and expense of having a car in SC. Bring a bike. Students take the local shuttle services to get to the airport, costs about $30 or so. The parking permits per semester are insanely expensive, very limited and don't guarantee you a space (it's still first come, first served, and they sell WAY more hang tags than they have spaces). You have to park in the remote lot as an undergrad, which means you will still need to hop a bus in order to get to classes. </p>
<p>You get to ride the local buses for free, and they run pretty frequently and pretty reliably. It's how almost everyone gets around; if you have a car and people find out, they WILL mob you and they WILL take advantage of it, and good luck to you recouping costs.</p>
<p>I have close friends who lived in LA until grad school and never owned a car, solely reliant on public transit and still doesn't have a car! It is definately doable, one individual completed his BS and MS at UCLA and his parents were in Pasadena. It may take a little longer, it does everywhere, but the pluses greatly outweigh the minuses.</p>
<p>any advice on how to talk my parents into letting me take a car? I've come up with what I thought were some great arguments, but so far no luck. although they have said large scholarships could change things...</p>
<p>any advice on how to talk my parents into letting me take a car? I've come up with what I thought were some great arguments, but so far no luck. although they have said large scholarships could change things...</p>
<p>I can talk about Cal Poly SLO and UC Santa Cruz, since I am a student at Cal Poly and was at UCSC last summer doing research.</p>
<p>At Cal Poly, if you live in the dorms, you do not need a car. If you live on the on-campus apartments, or if you live off-campus in San Luis Obispo, a car is a convenience, but not necessary. San Luis Obispo's bus service is fine. However, it stops service to areas 3-5 miles way from campus (such as toward Los Osos Valley Road or toward Tank Farm Rd) at about 6:30 (downtown service stops at 8:30); so you may have a hard time getting home if your classes end at night and if you live over 3 miles away from campus. Buses from those areas to Cal Poly run only every 30 minutes, and they do get full (especially by residents who live about a mile from campus but who don't feel like walking). I currently live in the on-campus apartments (Cerro Vista), without a car. The only usage for a car that I can think of is getting groceries. I suggest that you don't bring a car, but invest in a bicycle, especially if you live off-campus. Now, if you live in the surrounding cities (Paso Robles, Atascadero, Grover Beach, Los Osos, etc.), you must have a car. The bus service to those cities is too unreliable for a student, IMO.</p>
<p>At UC Santa Cruz, you don't need a car, especially if you live on campus. Period. Santa Cruz has the best public transportation service for a small town that I've ever used. I never had any trouble getting in and around Santa Cruz and its adjacent cities (such as Capitola, which has a nice mall). Buses from downtown Santa Cruz to UCSC run very frequently (sometimes about every 10-20 minutes), and they run from very early in the morning until midnight (during the school year, I believe that there is a shuttle that runs until 2:00 am from downtown on the weekends). Now, I do hear that they do get full in the school year (especially in the winter; keep in mind that UC Santa Cruz is about 4 miles or so away from Downtown; it's not easy to walk from downtown to UCSC), but since the buses run so frequently, it isn't much of a problem. Once again, groceries will be your concern if you live on campus; however, I believe that UCSC requires its residents to buy a meal plan, so that shouldn't be much of an issue. (In my research program, I lived on campus. They didn't require a meal plan since we were guests, so I used the bus or friends with cars to go to the grocery store. The closest grocery store to UCSC is the Safeway located on Mission St (aka Highway 1)).</p>
<p>My advice is to find a city with an excellent public transportation system, invest in a good bicycle for places that public transportation can't reach well, and find a friend who has a car for groceries and other things that are a bit tricky to do without a car. Cars are wonderful and get us from point A to B quickly, but they are also expensive to buy, expensive to maintain, and insurance, licensing fees, and gas can easily add up. It is prohibitively expensive for students who have a tight budget. Public transportation is free (i.e., subsidized by the school) and saves the hassle of the responsibilities of owning a car. Public transportation has its downsides (it's slow, it's sometimes unreliable, sometimes overcrowded, and in bigger cities you'll have to put up with people that you'd rather not have to deal with), but for a poor college student like myself, an excellent public transportation system is a godsend. Oh, and consider owning a bike; it's nice private transportation without the hassles of owning a car.</p>
<p>Oh, as far as Amtrak service goes, Cal Poly has a bus stop for Amtrak and a train station in San Luis Obispo. Santa Cruz has a bus stop in Downtown (there is a bus that runs frequently from the train station in San Jose to the Amtrak bus stop in Santa Cruz, via Highway 17).</p>
<p>Not to hate on LA or anything, but LA's public transportation is THE WORST public transportation network I have ever seen in my life. And I live in Monterey, California where there's NO public transportation anywhere. California generally does a pretty bad job when it comes to public transportation. Good public transportation is mostly an east coast phenomenon. That said, I think New York City has one of THE BEST metro/bus networks in the world. Sure their subways are disgusting, but they get you from Long Island to the Bronx without having to transfer trains. By the way, that's Long Island, through Brooklyn, through all of Manhattan and through all of the Bronx, on one line.</p>
<p>End Rant.</p>
<p>USF - No car needed. Excellent public transportation.</p>
<p>Pitzer - Depends on how often you want to get off campus. Convenience, not a necessity. I'm a senior in Claremont and have never had a car.</p>
<p>Fullerton - I'm told that a car is imperative. Major commuter campus, plus there's lots of fun stuff near-ish by that you'll want to get to! On a related note: b/c it's such a commuter campus, you can assume that you'll know lots of people with cars.</p>
<p>Irvine - Same story as Fullerton.</p>
<p>With many of the UC/CSUs, you won't be guaranteed housing after freshman year (if you get it then, which is not always the case). In these cases, you'll clearly need a car (especially because housing within easy walking distance from campus can be expensive or hard to come by due to the high demand).</p>
<p>Bear in mind that as a new driver, you may not want to be "the one with the car" at some of these schools, stuck shuttling carloads of your friends into LA. SoCal...not such a fun place to drive, and while not all the schools on your list are immediately IN LA, the majority of them are IN LA traffic! Just know that at schools where not everyone has cars, there may be some expectation placed on you, so be sure you're either up to the challenge of driving or up to the task of turning people down. This, above all, is why I wouldn't bring a car down even if I had one that would get me over the Grapevine!</p>
<p>Good luck :-)</p>
<p>You can auction spots in your car...if the demand is high enough you should be able to pay for gas...or even insurance.</p>
<p>Haven't been on CC in awhile...been too busy with apps! I wanted to revisit the topic.</p>
<p>On the bike-I was planning on bringing a bike anyway. It would be good exercise and it's good for short distances.</p>
<p>On insurance-Hopefully I can get the parentals to take care of that...and if that doesn't work, I'll pay for that from my wages.</p>
<p>...wanted to revisit again.</p>
<p>It looks like I'm gonna have to convince my parents....they don't seem to want me to bring one. I NEED the experience and I don't want to feel stuck on campus. I plan to live on campus.</p>
<p>I have my permit now, and I'm going to begin lessons soon so I can start driving to my future job.</p>
<p>By the way...I've been admitted to...</p>
<p>Cal Poly Pomona
Cal State Fullerton
Arizona State
San Diego State
UC Riverside
University of Redlands</p>
<p>Is a car imperative at any of these places?</p>
<p>I need help....suggestions anyone??????? I hope this thread has been informative.</p>
<p>If you need a car I'm selling mine available beginning may 29th. It's in pretty good condition...so talk to me if you're interested. I'm going to NYU so I need to get rid of my car.</p>
<p>What about Chicago, safe to say few people actually bring cars?</p>
<p>Fullerton is very much a commuter campus, which means (a) You will never not know plenty of people with cars, and (b) You might find yourself stranded on weekends. </p>
<p>The same may or may not hold true for Cal Poly Pomona. I'm in Claremont, which is nearby, and a car is by no means imperative <em>on our campus</em>, but it's helpful if you want to get much further.</p>
<p>In your parents' defense, I can't imagine sending my kid to begin college AND begin driving <em>basically</em> simultaneously. Suggest waiting a semester and revisiting the debate. Without knowing you personally, I think that would be a much smarter decision, period. Good luck, regardless!</p>
<p>I would recommend a car in Southern California since the public transportation is awful. Be warned that finding a parking space at some of the bigger schools can be very difficult.</p>
<p>I'll tell you about the schools I know about:</p>
<p>Cal State Fullerton- yes, it's a commuter school
San Diego State- they have a train station that takes you downtown. A car is not necessary.
UC Irvine- probably more so than any college listed, you need a car. There is nothing to do within walking distance. Parking is very expensive, though ($500+)
UC Santa Barbara- don't need a car. It's a college town. You can walk most places.
UC Santa Cruz (I have found out bringing a car is impossible for underclassmen)- don't need a car. The school has a bus that takes you into the town. Make friends with people who have cars.
University of Redlands- need a car. There's nothing to do in the area.
USC- definitely. USC is in a very sketchy area. A lot of people drive to Westwood on the weekends.</p>
<p>To add to what Worried Student said about parking, note that permits at some of the schools you've listed (I know the UC system, specifically) are very expensive.</p>