A New Year's wish I'd like to Tweet into existence: "commuter" is no longer used as a dirty word. "Commuter school" is often used disparagingly and commuter students are often viewed as less-than and undesirable. (A short soap-boxy )

I was a commuter student who worked full time throughout college. My journey was Land Grant -> Community College -> Regional Public. At the CC and Regional, I was most successful due to flexible class schedules and profs who understood all that I balanced while going to school.

This was not my experience at the land grant where most of my peers lived in the dorms and did not work outside of school. The professors did not understand that I had to work full time and couldn't just take classes whenever they were offered but had to fit them around work.

It took me 5 years because I "swirled" - but my swirl was intentional, not accidental as some of the research implies. Those "commuter schools" are why I'm here today - they gave me access in a way the land grant did not. My story is one of many first-gen, low-income students.

Commuter = immigrant, working parent, first-gen, low-income, BIPOC, woman, Pell, queer, etc. These students are resilient, hardworking, and determined to pursue higher learning despite the odds stacked against them. This is why we should make commuter a beautiful word.