With a love large enough to say, “If I could live here, I would,” many of us commuters still choose not to live on campus at Monmouth. My love for Monmouth is completely indescribable; I cannot imagine myself as happy as I am anywhere else. The desire to spend all the time I have at MU makes others question my choice to commute to school.
At least three out of the five weekdays you can find me eating all three of my meals at school (yes, if you were wondering, that means I have 8:30 a.m. classes every day of the week, so breakfast on campus is a must!) and you’ll most likely see my face on campus on the weekends too. I genuinely cannot get enough of our beautiful campus. So this urges many of my friends and family to question this choice to commute.
“You are on campus for 12 hours a day anyway, you might as well live there,” is a comment I get quite a bit. It would be much more convenient given all the things I am involved with on campus for me to live here, but I find that commuting, aside from being cheaper, is a more liberating college experience. Not that you can’t have a car when you live on campus, but I truly feel as though I have a lot more freedom being a commuter. It really prepares you for the future—time management is very important to handle when you commute. This is a skill that commuting does nothing, but enhance. This skill, then translates to a greater understanding of real adult responsibilities.
Now, this doesn’t mean that time management and responsibility aren’t enhanced when living on campus, but the levels of each are different for each student. It is very difficult to compare and contrast a resident student and a commuter student because they both have a different set of needs and there are benefits and handicaps to both lifestyles. But, speaking from a commuter standpoint, I can only give positive reviews for commuting to MU.
A lot of people say that by commuting you are limiting yourself and not getting the full “college experience,” but I haven’t felt like I am missing out on anything. What I love most about commuting, specifically to MU, is that I can still do absolutely anything a resident student can do and then some. The best part of the experience is that after I get my fill, I just drive 20 minutes back home, eat Mom’s leftover dinner, snuggle with my three dogs, and sleep in my own bedroom. Honestly, I don’t think it can get much better than that!
All in all, your college experience is what you make of it. There are many types of commuters. You can be the “student commuter” or the “hyper-involved commuter.” I’m not sure there is really an in-between. The “student commuter” drives to school, goes to class, and drives home. They’re at MU for one reason—their degree. Now, if this is what you are doing, there is nothing wrong with that! It is all about your preference.
The “hyper-involved commuter” is the commuter who drives to school, goes to classes, probably has some sort of meal plan, attends any and all events that interest him or her, utilizes the library to do work, probably has an on-campus job, and only after all of his/her on campus obligations are fulfilled do they drive home. Regardless of which type of commuter you are, I think (well, I hope) we can all say that we LOVE MU! Because no matter the type of commuter we are, we do what makes us happy. For me, just being at MU makes me happy. So, sorry Mom and Dad, I’ll be home late tonight (as usual)!
