Bringing a car to campus can be seen as a lifesaver or as a hassle. So how do you make the decision whether to bring your car with you or not? Well, let’s weigh the pros and cons:

Pros:

• Freedom
  • Of course, having a car means you do not have to stay within walking distance of where you live or where city transport can take you. Bringing your car to campus means you can go wherever you want whenever you want.
• Off-Campus Employment
  • On-campus jobs are competitive, and often do not pay as well as many opportunities off-campus. Having a car means you can commute to a worksite others cannot. If you are like me, you may work or have worked for a chain retail store, restaurant, or company back home, and you may be lucky enough to transfer to their closest location to your college campus. This means you will have a job waiting for you when you go to college. For me, I had to drive about ten minutes off-campus, which isn’t bad at all considering I did not have to retrain for a new job or get a pay deduction.
• Fun
  • Sure, there is plenty to do on campus, but after a while being stuck in the same space gets a little boring. Having a car means you can go explore the mall in the next town over, go watch movies with friends, or even just get out to drive a bit for fun.
• Going Home
  • Having your car with you on campus means you can go home whenever you want. Whether it be for homesickness, a birthday, the holidays, or a medical emergency, you won’t have to wait to book a flight or have someone make the boring drive to come pick you up only to drop you right back off again a few days later. You can simply come and go as you please.
• Volunteering Opportunities
  • If you are an avid volunteer, odds are you will see on-campus volunteering sign-up slots filling up fast. The good news is volunteers are needed everywhere! If you have your car with you, you can go to the next town over for a unique opportunity to volunteer there. I know with my personal experience, I like to volunteer in the medical field and with the pandemic going on I found a mobile clinic looking for help. They travel within my college town and a little outside into other towns, needless to say having my car allows me to help out as much as I desire.

Cons:

• Weather
  • If you are traveling to an area that is colder than the area you came from (such as traveling north to the University of Iowa) you are going to need to make sure your car is suited for the weather. In Iowa, it gets cold and snowy, so I found it useful to invest in a new (and outstanding quality) battery for my car (so I don’t get stuck alone in the cold needing a jumpstart), a front windshield cover, some de-icer spray, and a good snow brush (to save time from ice scraping), and a mini shovel and bag of ice melt (to help you get out of your parking spot after a big snowstorm). Of course, it is also important to keep a safety kit in your trunk if you do get stranded in bad weather. Always have a blanket, some food and water, hand warmers, chargers, and anything else you think you may need.
• Parking
  • Depending on where you go to school, parking can be a hassle. At the University of Iowa, you can go through the school and buy a cheap commuter pass to a parking lot that a campus bus can take you to or you can buy a private spot at a parking garage which is more pricey, but closer to campus. The student lot at the University of Iowa has a bus come and go from the student lot to campus every 20 minutes on weekdays and every hour on weekends. The bus ride can range from 15 minutes to a half-hour, but waiting for the bus itself is the real impatience, especially if you just barely missed the previous one.
• Maintenance
  • Yes, even though you may not use your car are much in college, it still needs maintenance done to it such as an oil change, and you may run into unthinkable problems as well. Bringing your car to college means you will be in charge of the maintenance and repairs on your own. You have to stay on top of this or else you can end up in more trouble than you imagined.