We can all agree that college life is great, but how does that change when you spend about five hours a day travelling in and out of campus? Here are 15 awful truths every commuter will understand:
1. You get up so early that you have no idea what the weather will be like later on.
It’s pitch black outside your window when you’re getting dressed - how are you supposed to know what to wear? The weather forecast on your phone can only tell you so much. One thing is guaranteed: every time you play it safe and bring a coat, you’ll end up carrying it around all day like an idiot and if not? Rain city people.
2. Once a day, you temporarily become a maths wizard…
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Remember all those times we exasperatedly asked if we’d ever need maths after school? The time has sadly come. Every morning you have to do exact calculations so you know the latest possible time you can leave your bed and still be on time. Doing this every morning before 7am should warrant a medal, I reckon.
3. And you've also become a public transport encyclopedia.
As a result of spending so much of your life staring at public transport timetables, you now have a pretty thorough knowledge of the bus and/or train systems in your area and beyond. You’re now full of totally useless information about how to get to places you’ve never even heard of before.
4. Commuting is really, really expensive.
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You've availed of every student discount you could get your hands on, but whether you’re topping up your travel card or filling up your petrol tank again, it just can’t be avoided: commuting ain’t cheap. Sometimes it comes down to choosing between paying for transport for the week or buying alcohol for tomorrow night. Which will it be, hmmmm?
5. You never have time to do anything else because you’re in college all day.
Your journey into college begins before any of the shops are open, and you probably won’t be making your way home until they’re closed, too. No such thing as popping home for a nap or some food during a break like your on-campus friends either. If you’re staying around for something in the evening, you’re stuck in college all day long. Boo.
6. Speaking of food - you always have to buy food on campus.
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Being a commuter pretty much means you’re stuck with getting your meals in college. The downside to this is that, obviously, food sold on college campuses tends to be outrageously expensive. An upside, however, is that you've figured out all of your college’s cheapest places to eat, and you know the best spots of all.
7. Forgetting your phone charger is a disaster…
There’s no way your poor little phone will survive the entire day without being charged. You’re faced with a difficult decision: do you use your phone as usual, knowing that it will eventually abandon you to fend for yourself, or do you use it sparingly, maybe sacrificing listening to music while you travel? These are the tough decisions faced by us commuters on a daily basis. Pray for us.
8. And forgetting your earphones is even worse.
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No earphones. What the hell are you going to do on the train now? Listen to boring conversations? Hum your favourite tunes? On the other hand, you now realise that a disembodied voice on the bus announces each stop as the bus reaches it. This has existed for years, but you always have your earphones in on the bus, so you’ve never noticed before.
9. You've listened to your phone/iPod’s music library all the way through about six thousand times.
Even on days when you have your trusty earphones with you, listening to the same stuff every day can drive you crazy. The only way to hear different music is opening up the YouTube app, which, of course, stops playing if you close it. So you’d better be prepared to stare out the window for a while, because you can do absolutely nothing else with your device. Sad times.
10. Being way too tired to go to evening events on campus.
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There’s an awesome event taking place on campus today… at 8pm, and your classes finish at 3pm. Some days you convince yourself that you’ll stick it out and maybe even do some college work during that humongous gap, but more often than not, you find that you’re too tired, or you just can’t handle the tedium, and really, you just want a long, hard nap.
11. If you leave your house just a few minutes too late, you risk messing up your entire day.
One of the most annoying things about commuting is that your timing has to be perfect. If you start your journey a minute too late, you risk hitting the traffic jams and missing your first class, and that’s guaranteed to be the day when you have a big, fat, three hour-long break right after it. The knowledge that you may as well have just slept in will haunt you all day long.
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12. You make the same, lonnnnnnng, boring journey every single day.
You love your city, you really do, but travelling the exact same route day-in, day-out is monotonous as hell. I personally began to realise just how boring my commute was when I (totally seriously) referred to route 47 as “the scenic route.” I am not 64 years old by the way.
13. You have to set multiple alarms in order to wake up in the morning.
Getting up at an ungodly hour of the morning every day of the week is nearly impossible. The only way you can drag yourself out of bed is by irritating yourself out. Therefore, your nightly routine now includes turning on multiple morning alarms and hoping for the best. 6:00, 6:05, 6:10, 6:15, and on it goes.....
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14. You realise a few minutes after leaving your house that you’ve forgotten something, and you’re forced to choose between being late for college or surviving without it.
There’s nothing worse than being a five-minute walk away from your house and realising you’ve forgotten something you'd intended to bring with you. If you go back for it, you’ll definitely miss your bus, or come into a huge traffic jam, and be late for college. You now face a decision: how imperative is this forgotten object to your day at college?
15. And days where you only have to be in for an hour are the most pointless thing ever.
We commuters tend to pack our days full of classes to avoid being left with a day where we have to make our long journey for only one class (shiver). Scoring ourselves an entire day off is a significant achievement. But disaster tends to strike in group project scenarios. Odds are that the only day your group will be able to have a meeting is - you guessed it - your day off!
