Being a commuter student isn't that bad » You may not get enough time on campus, but at least you won’t have much debt EG Manilag Staff Writer here are many definitions for the concept of a “commuter student.” It can be a student who lives off-campus (since there are no dormitories in our college, it’s safe to say that we all might relate to this!); a student who commutes or walks to school; or a student who often has work or family commitments after their classes. For many, these definitions go all in one at the same time. There are some pros in being a commuter student, and these pros are highly essential for lifelong learning and student productivity. But let’s start with the negatives. Being a student commuter myself, I sometimes feel isolated and stressed. I often get worried about my bus schedule. To cope with my distance problem, | always wake up early so that I can catch the bus and go to school... hours before lectures. Talso feel lonely because even if I want to join some cool clubs, my course and work schedules won't permit me. But one really has to work in order to save and survive, so hanging around on campus after classes isn't really an option for many students with jobs. To avoid the stress of working with school, some students take out student loans. If youre like me, the moment you receive your loan, you often feel more anxious rather than excited because you know you have to pay it back soon. As the amount accumulates, you feel obligated to at least work part time to save a couple Photo by Billy Bui bucks to help pay the debt in the future, which is how many become commuter students in the first place. Like many other fellow commuters, my college life is like a “come and go” experience—there is less engagement, and it seems the cycle just won't end. Despite all these negatives however, there are many positives to such a lifestyle. Life as acommuter student is still great. Sure, we deal with struggles and all that jazz, but we are also more productive as one study suggests. According to professors Simpson and Burnett in their 2019 study “Commuters Versus Residents: The Effects of Living Arrangement and Student Engagement on Academic Performance,’ commuter students generally have better GPAs than residential students (or students who live on campus). The authors note that the level of academic challenge was the main contributor preceding living arrangement. The findings of the study also imply that commuter students tend to strategically make use of their campus’s academic services more than resident students do because their time in campus is limited. It may be frustrating having to leave school immediately because of other responsibilities when you want to be a part of the college community. However, the benefits to being a commuter student are often overlooked. I wouldn’t change my college experience even if I could. Go for your dream job, regardless it if you can get a job in » The ultimate search for the right career Yasmeen Sangha Contributor his past semester I took a Student Success class and learned that nowadays people have more than one career path throughout their lifetime. The once existing practice of keeping a stable job in a single area and working your way up ina company until retirement isn’t the norm anymore. Do people plan to change careers so often? Do they have multiple passions, designating a percentage of their lives to each one of them? Cross one off the list, then on to the next? I’m not quite sure. My first dream job was to be a teacher. My grandma was a teacher, and I wanted to be just like her. I still want to be like her, since my grandmother is a powerful feminist role model in our family and definitely ahead of her time. When it comes to my career, however, I ended up steering away from my initial plan. At the age of nine, I knew I wanted to be an actor, but I kept suppressing this passion for something more practical—although I didn't really understand what that meant. In high school, being practical meant pursuing psychology—mostly because my best friends wanted to become doctors and I hadn't found something that was my own. I was trying to copy everyone else who seemed to have it together. I discovered for practical reasons, like the fact that my math and science grades are too embarrassing to recount, this was not the right path for me. I guess it wasn't as practical as I thought. Ona whim, | applied for Douglas College's Performing and Fine Arts certificate program instead. Once I started learning about that which I was genuinely interested in, I began to enjoy school. I have become a completely different person because I decided to stop lying to myself about what I truly wanted. I like to think most people are like me. We have ideas for what we should be and what we want to be. We might be afraid and pressured by those around us to make the right choice. People have drifted away from committing to one seemingly stable career: so, is anything really stable? Growing up, we are encouraged to follow our dreams... but why is this message suddenly ripped away from us as adults? The first and most important person who will be directly impacted by your career choices is you, so if you're choosing to do something you don’t like for the rest of your life, remember that you are the one that will wake up every day to go to that job. You might as well enjoy your career.