Commuter Struggles and Challenges

Commuter students can sometimes feel left out or as if they are not a part of the student body because they miss out on most things that happen on campus. This is because most of the vents that take place on campus occur during the evening, so only a few commuter students are able to attend. Most commuter students who are actively involved on campus drive to school so it gives them an advantage over commuter students who have to commute by public transportation.

This issue needs to be investigated because part of the experience of going to college is socializing with others, and missing out on such activities takes away from the experience. Especially with media today geared towards representing the excitement of college life, many incoming students get to college to find out there is a huge difference in how college is portrayed depending on where you go to college.

The groups that would be interested in this issue would include commuter students, and the staff of campus life, because they issue is directly related to commuter students, and campus life are the ones who can help in solving the problem. I might quote the commuter and resident students, and represent the views of both of them.

The conclusion I want readers to reach is, how alienated commuter students can feel and that universities should work hard to make this issue non-existent.

  This article talks about the challenges commuter students face, compared to residential students. It states that commuters do not have a chance to meet other students and develop relationships because most of these interactions occur cafeterias, resident halls, etc. that is, places that most commuter students do not hang out at. Therefore their options are limited.
It also states that commuter students often have to go the extra mile to meet with professors and other members of faculty because they usually have to commute a lot. Which leads to the issue that is transportation. Parking spaces are limited because a lot of commuter have their own cars. And they also have to arrange their schedules in a way that allows them to attend most of their classes back to back so they do not have to commute as much, and spend less time on campus. Because they spend minimal amounts of time on campus, commuter students are not familiar with the where most things are located on campus so they only go to the buildings where their classes are held and therefore miss out on most stuff. It concludes by talking about an experiment that show that commuter students retain less than resident students, and they also are less likely to persist in college because they have less interactions with “academic and social systems”.

This source describes commuter students and the issues they face. It states that a higher percentage of commuter students have off-campus part-time jobs, and that they feel distant from resident students. It also states that most commuter students chose to commute because they either cannot afford to live on campus or they enjoy the benefits of staying with family or alone. However, they find it difficult to socialize on campus. It states that some of the major issues commuter students face is having reliable mean of transportation, having less time and energy, and lacking a sense of inclusion on campus.

It goes on to give solutions to making commuters feel at home on campus, like organizing events at times that most commuter students are able to attend, communicating in ways that are most likely to be heard or seen by them, like putting fliers in buildings they usually go to, and faculty having more flexible office hours.