Sinéad Baker | Co-Editor-at-Large
Typically, having the shortest commute possible is seen as something to be envied. The reason that we covet on-campus accommodation is typically due to its proximity to where we have to be, rather than believing that the accommodation itself is particularly luxe. I lived at home for my first two years in Trinity, choosing to commute in and out every day. That meant I had a twice-daily 80-minute commute.
Although there were many reasons for this – I didn’t live far enough away to justify the cost, finding accommodation is difficult and I was both lazy and out of the country for the ends of summer – it didn’t turn out to be a decision that I regretted, even though my assumption that I wouldn’t spend that much time in college turned out to be incredibly naive.
I was lucky enough to make friends that would take me in after nights out, and let me while away hours with them when I had long breaks and couldn’t face the library. Although it can become uncomfortable to rely on the generosity of friends too much, on a normal evening I always found the commute home to be beneficial to my mood and productivity.
Having a long journey home, and a set timetable of trains that I could catch, meant it was easier to look behind me.
The point here is not that I still lived at home – though I did envy many of the freedoms afforded to those who had moved outside of parental rule – but that my experiences of living that distance from Trinity didn’t match up with the expectations that other students had about that type of commute. While fellow students tended to feel sorry for me when they found out where I lived, my typical journey offered me a chance to sit, browse the internet, listen to music and catch up on my work – the kinds of activities that I would tend to engage in in my spare time anyway.
My decision to move out came more from logistical necessity than frustration at my situation: my involvement in different areas of Trinity life have committed me to spending exponentially more time on campus, and to doing things that can’t be done from a distance. Although living closer to college gives me more time to get stuff done, my productivity has actually fallen. Having a long journey home, and a set timetable of trains that I could catch, meant it was easier to look behind me, and at what I had done with my day, then it is when I only have a brief walk home that can be taken whenever I feel like it.
A study conducted by the University of East Anglia of over 18,000 British commuters saw one of the researchers comment that, for those who have long commutes (as long as they aren’t travelling by car), “buses or trains [give] people time to relax, read or socialise, and there is usually an associated walk to the bus stop or railway station, it appears to cheer people up”. Whereas those who commute to work are generally forced to travel during rush hour, as a student I could socialise or head to the library to avoid those times – and continue to get more done.
To be able to compartmentalise my day, and to leave Trinity far behind if I felt like, was very beneficial to my mental health. Although I’m very happy to have shortened the journey between “home” and campus, I’ve definitely noticed that the lack of distance – in a literal sense – between myself and any problems I’ve been facing in Trinity has meant that I find it harder to contextualise these problems, be they social, academic or something else.
