Today: Mar 29, 2024

Commuter students struggle as cold weather persists

Sofia RositaniEditor-in-Chief

Commuting to campus has not been an easy feat.  

The roads being bumpy and the parking lots far from campus has been something of a challenge for me since I started commuting to and from Waterbury. 

Next semester will be worse because I must be on campus Monday to Friday, and it will be snowing and have freezing temperatures.  

The roads are already bad as it is without snow, but I know it will get worse once the weather gets snowier and bleaker. The number of potholes that will show up due to the snow and the salt being laid out will make it hazardous to drive even in the summer. As someone who lives in Waterbury, I am used to these kinds of roads, but I should not have to be trying to actively avoid hitting a pothole in the parking lots of the university.  

While the roads are bad, parking for commuters is not great either. I do not think it is fair that commuter students must park so far away while students who live on campus have closer parking, such as the parking lot next to Schwartz Hall. I come to campus early just so I have time to find parking and then make the walk to campus because we have an extremely limited number of areas to park, the closer lots usually being packed.  

It is getting colder out and dark earlier, and with the crime rates getting higher on and off campus I feel nervous walking to and from class once it gets dark out. My anxiety has spiked so bad that there have been times I have asked my dad to pick me up because I have been scared to drive at night. The university police have been doing an excellent job investigating certain issues that have been happening on campus, but we also do not know what happened after the incidents occurred.  

Commuters on campus do have places to go before their classes but many of us do not want to come hours earlier because there is no reason to do that but with how parking is and the drive over it makes it harder for some of us to come earlier.  

Some professors are not very understanding when commuters cannot come into class too. It is not our fault if the weather makes it where we cannot attend class or get there on time. Sometimes I have been late, and professors are very understanding but sometimes they are not, and they should understand it is not our fault, life happens, and sometimes we cannot make it to class on time.  

In the future, I hope to see better parking and better road conditions for commuter students because this university is known to be a heavy commuter campus and yet a lot of it caters to residential students.  

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