Life as a University Student: Public Transit

Hey everyone, sorry for not updating this blog more often. I’ve been crazy busy with my move so I've been relying on posts that I scheduled months ago. Now that those have run out, I’m going to have to make a better effort to keep this blog alive.

My new blog schedule is probably going to go something like this:

Tuesday: Writing Tip

Thursday: Book Review

Saturday: My Life

Since it’s Saturday, that means it’s going to be a My Life post. Basically, these are going to be quick posts about stuff that’s been happening to me with the move and university.

So far, I think my biggest learning curve has been using public transit. Back on PEI we’ve only had busses for about five years and they get so little use that having five people on a bus at a time is busy. I never rode the bus back home, so getting everywhere by bus is a huge change for me.

Busses are really practical for university students for a couple reasons. First of all, it’s already paid for as part of my student fees. If I had a car I’d have to pay for gas, insurance, maintenance, parking (which is $700 at king’s) and stuff like that. Taking the bus is saving me a ton of money, not to mention the whole ‘save the environment’ thing.

The biggest downside is simply how long it takes to get anywhere. This afternoon I’m heading to the mall to hang out with my cousins. It’s just 10 km away and according to google maps it should take me about 25 minutes to get there. Even if I biked it should take me just under an hour, but with a bus transfer and stopping everywhere it’s going to take me about an hour and a half to get there.

Now, since today’s Saturday and I have nothing to do, I don’t really care that I’m going to be spending nearly three hours on busses just to get to the mall. But in a couple weeks when I’m snowed under with homework I just won’t have that kind of time. Even getting to campus (25 minutes by bus) is going to be annoying. The slowness of city buses will limit me to the area right around my apartment. Since I’m used to having a car, this feels just a little claustrophobic.

Oh, well. I’ll get used to it. So far living away from home has been better than I thought it was going to be, and it’s my own fault that I’m heading to the mall tomorrow, so I shouldn’t complain. I just felt like griping a bit, since I actually don’t have anything to complain about.

What about all of you? How’s school so far? If you’re starting University, was it what you expected? Have any of you had any interesting experiences with public transit?