So what’s the deal with parking here? All the time, it seems as if there’s little to no parking available, unless you’re suddenly willing to walk across the entire lot in order to get to the campus walking paths. This school has right around 1300 parking spaces available to faculty, teachers, and students alike. Of this mass amount of parking allowed for us, roughly 260 spots are reserved specifically for faculty and staff. These are all the spots marked by yellow parking lines, and it includes the spots available in the back “excess” parking lot. Through some pretty simple math, this gives students an abundance of over 1000 spots to pick from. But for some reason, there’s always a complaint that there are no parking spots available.
UCBA student Matt McDowell created this meme about parking on campus.
This tends to be because students aren’t willing to walk all the ways from far away spaces in order to stay at school for roughly 5 hours a day, give or take a couple. Students would much rather have a closer spot to their classes, thus eliminating any time spent walking. This can especially be beneficial during inclement weather, such as downpours, snow storms, or severe temperature drops. Letting students park closer and take over the faculty parking spots could prove to be a tremendous help on the start of their school day, as how their day starts typically effects how they will take in the events of the oncoming school work-load.
Now I understand, this may seem selfish in part of the students, but it’s really not when you think about it. Students are typically at school for 5-6 hours at a time, but that mostly depends on their scheduling. Teachers, on the other hand, generally teach classes all day, typically at much longer hours than the students are at the school. This means that since the students are going to be their for fewer hours, they should be able to park closer, eliminating any potential “damage” caused by the weather to their persons or equipment they have, or any potential for the student being late to class. For example, imagine a student is getting ready to present a big project for class, and as they get out of their car, parked at the back of the lot due to all the previous spots being filled, a big gust of wind yanks out the student’s important papers. Then they are left chasing their papers down the parking lot, thus causing a much higher chance for an accident to occur, since the student is most likely focusing on grabbing their papers, and not on the road that their about to run across.
In the winter, ice patches hidden in plain sight can cause slips and falls. Or as spring is starting to come into play, there tends to be many more storms and rain down-pours occurring. An unexpected flash storm can cause severe damage to technology left out during the rain. Even if your device is kept hidden away, say a phone in a pocket, or a laptop in a backpack, it doesn’t take long for the rain to soak through the thin layers of cloth, and potentially cause damage to the electronic devices. Letting students park closer could tremendously reduce the risk of falling and hurting themselves, their devices, and their pride. And with college already so expensive and daunting enough, the last thing a student needs is something else to add to their “To Pay” list.
