I’ve been a commuter for the majority of my university career. However, during my undergraduate and masters degree that commute was 10-15 minutes. Since I’ve started my PhD at Ohio State, that commute became a minimum of 1 hour and 15 minutes. As my partner has a job in the Dayton area, we didn’t want to move closer to Columbus and I was OK with commuting for a few years.
I’m not going to lie, there were times where the commute is rough. Driving from Dayton to Columbus on 75 can be a bit repetitive and even longer with active construction or traffic. I would usually plan to leave an hour before I needed to be on campus just in case if there was an accident or new construction changing the traffic patterns. Even when I do make good time on driving, I still have to navigate parking on campus. The commute is also a bit rough when I realised that I would lose around 3 hours a day to driving (and that could be used for precious writing time!). While I do miss being on campus, I do enjoy having those 3 hours back while I work from home.
When I did commute, I did find some tips to make the drive more enjoyable and easier.
- Always check Waze or Google Maps before leaving. This helps so much for planning my drive just in case if I have to take a different route or leave earlier in the day. On the way home, I would usually check to see how bad traffic was leaving out of Columbus. If I saw the traffic was bad I would either stay on campus a little longer to work, or take the opportunity to explore campus or the Columbus area.
- Find a podcast you love or learn a language. To make the drives more enjoyable and stimulating, I would usually put on a language app like Pimsleur to practice Japanese in the car so I would feel more productive. On days where I may be a bit more tired I would listen to a podcast (shout out to the other MFM listeners). To find more podcasts for my drive, I would usually ask people I meet for the first time for their favorite podcast (which also doubled as an icebreaker).
- Have a plan for parking. Admittedly I knew after driving for over an hour I didn’t want to search for parking. Additionally, I didn’t want to have to look hard for parking and wanted the freedom to get to campus at any time. That led to my decision to pay a little extra for a garage pass where there were usually more spots available. Bonus was that in the winter my car was covered and I wouldn’t have to worry about cleaning it before starting another hour drive.
- Know your boundaries. When I started commuting I was pretty tied to a class schedule so I didn’t have as much freedom choosing what days I would be on campus. However, I did set boundaries on when I can take meetings on campus whenever possible. I would try to group meetings outside of class onto days I already had to be on campus so I can make the most of my drive. Again, this wasn’t always possible but I always tried my best to keep these boundaries.
Drive Safe!