Commuting to school Forum

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Portjefferson

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Commuting to school

Post by Portjefferson » Thu May 05, 2016 5:50 pm

For family reasons, I'm planning to commute ~1 hour by car (one way) to one of HYS.

Any commuters out there with any advice/helpful tips?

Basically I'm wondering how much this will suck. I'm older (28-30) and have a family so not super worried about missing out on the social experience, but am concerned about having enough time to meet with professors, etc.

My current reasoning is that plenty of people commute an hour each way for their jobs, so why should this case be dramatically different? Would be great to hear some opinions.

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Good Guy Gaud

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Re: Commuting to school

Post by Good Guy Gaud » Thu May 05, 2016 6:05 pm

My commute was roughly the same and I don't think it ever impacted my studies. You really won't need that much time to do well in law school.

Snag some Law School Legends CDs for the classes you're taking (Amazon sells them) if you're worried about losing time. I thought they were pretty helpful.

Goldie

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Re: Commuting to school

Post by Goldie » Thu May 05, 2016 6:25 pm

I also drove 1hr each way during 1L and ended up #1 in my class at a T1 school before transferring to an HYS school.

I tried to drive in before traffic got bad, and didn't leave until traffic had died down. I rarely tried to "maximize commute time" by listening to audio lectures, etc. Instead, I just turned on some music and allowed it to be a decompression time. Spending all day at school, and spending all day on school, was actually helpful. I'm less disciplined about that now that I live very close to school (though part of that could be the difference between 1L and 2L/3L.)

I'm not saying it never sucked. Depending on which of HYS you are going to, the weather can impact the commute. It makes late-night socializing more difficult, and definitely makes bar reviews or other alcohol related events harder to participate in. But I don't think it hurts your ability to meet with professors - assuming you spend much of the day at school, you'll be able to meet them before/between/after classes. But then again your commute is going to be ~10hrs (give or take) a week, and having some or all of that to study (or do something totally non-school related) can be nice.

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ronanOgara

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Re: Commuting to school

Post by ronanOgara » Thu May 05, 2016 6:43 pm

Portjefferson wrote:For family reasons, I'm planning to commute ~1 hour by car (one way) to one of HYS.

Any commuters out there with any advice/helpful tips?

Basically I'm wondering how much this will suck. I'm older (28-30) and have a family so not super worried about missing out on the social experience, but am concerned about having enough time to meet with professors, etc.

My current reasoning is that plenty of people commute an hour each way for their jobs, so why should this case be dramatically different? Would be great to hear some opinions.
I commuted over an hour each way for school. It wasn't too bad. I used the commute time to decompress rather than listen to audio books. I think having audio books would be a good idea just in case though. I would stay at school until like 7:00 pm and head home. I often would get home and not open up any books to study. I found the commuting made me more useful of my time at school (compared to others were doing). It was annoying listening to classmates who lived 5 mins from school talk about sleeping in and stuff, but you'll get past that. Plus, I felt like I could "get away" from school when I went home. So that was a nice benefit. Oh and I did just fine academically.

All in all, just treat it all like a job and you'll be fine. Law school isn't hard.

BIG dawg

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Re: Commuting to school

Post by BIG dawg » Thu May 05, 2016 9:47 pm

have a few podcasts ready to listen to

don't change lanes too often, it actually makes the commute slower. there have been studies on this

no matter how much you don't want to, get gas on your way home and not the morning before you leave for class. you'll thank yourself later.

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A. Nony Mouse

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Re: Commuting to school

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Thu May 05, 2016 11:23 pm

Goldie wrote:I rarely tried to "maximize commute time" by listening to audio lectures, etc. Instead, I just turned on some music and allowed it to be a decompression time.
This is what I did, too. It was a nice mental break (certainly there are nicer ways to get one, but if you have to commute, it works for that purpose).
BIG dawg wrote:no matter how much you don't want to, get gas on your way home and not the morning before you leave for class. you'll thank yourself later.
This is SO TRUE.

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Mack.Hambleton

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Re: Commuting to school

Post by Mack.Hambleton » Thu May 05, 2016 11:30 pm

You cant pick your classes 1L so you may get stuck with some 8ams which will suck unless you're a super morning person. Still worth commuting tho

Goldie

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Re: Commuting to school

Post by Goldie » Sat May 07, 2016 12:27 am

Mack.Hambleton wrote:You cant pick your classes 1L so you may get stuck with some 8ams which will suck unless you're a super morning person. Still worth commuting tho
Yeah, I had 8:50am classes one semester and that makes at least some mornings suck. I tried to get in before then usually, but traffic/weather + morning classes can be a real pain.

This is also school-specific, but definitely make sure you know what the parking situation is at your school.

aoutis

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Re: Commuting to school

Post by aoutis » Sat May 07, 2016 11:34 pm

The Bay Area can be a little tricky since an hour on Google maps doesn't always translate into an hour drive time. However, I know several people that commute from NYC, Stamford and other CT towns to YLS. They are still able to do a moderate amount of socializing and it doesn't seem to detract from their study time. Being on the train route makes it a lot easier, especially in winter. I've heard of people commuting to Harvard, but I don't personally know anyone that does it.

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