Commuting Vs. On-Campus Living

My phone alarm goes off and wakes me up at 8:45 in the morning on this bright and sunny Monday. I get up, take a quick shower, quickly get ready and walk out the door and into my car by 9:50. I am blasting the radio to Taylor Swift and Luke Bryan and I have the windows rolled down enjoying the fresh air while I am on my way to my college classes. I am driving the back roads from Holland to Allendale for close to twenty-five minutes in order to get to my first of three classes at GVSU, beginning at 11:00 AM. I go through this routine day in and day out because I am a college commuter student. There are a lot of different experiences available to both commuter students and students living in dorms and even though each one has its own individual values, either position makes college an adventure of a lifetime for each student.

My good friend Sydney's alarm goes off at 10:15 AM and she wakes in her dorm room at West A Living Center and knows that she has to get ready for her class at 11:00 in Lake Superior Hall. She has learned that it only takes her approximately fifth-teen minutes to get ready in her room, as long as her roommate, Jennifer, was already gone to her classes, since she always takes the longest to get ready. After Sydney leaves her dorm room, she heads to the Lobby Shop in Kirkhof to grab a snack since she will not be eating until later in the afternoon. Once Sydney finishes eating, she walks to LSH and sits outside her Psych 101 class waiting to talk with her fellow Psych classmate and best friend, Mackenzie, until class starts. Sydney's dorm-life experience is different from that of a commuter student such as myself. However, in the long run during the college years the adventures of both commuters and dorm students ...

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...ch as fewer expenses, and being able to concentrate on my course work are varied greatly with the good things that Sydney experiences with living in a dorm, such as being able to attend GVSU events and being able to take full advantage of everything the campus offers to its students. On the other hand, there are the negative issues that I deal with as a commuter such as not being involved in the campus life and the amount of time it takes to travel to Allendale in the winter, and the difficulties that Sydney deals with like the expenses she must pay and the lack of space in her dorm room for her and her dorm mate, as well as not being able to connect with her family as much as she might want. Even though the encounters that both Sydney and I have had are distinctive, we are both getting what we want out of our college experience here at Grand Valley State University.