As classes begin, students are becoming well-adjusted to their schedules and figuring out how to manage their time. It is a bit difficult, at least for me and some people I know, to get back into the school routine the minute we get onto campus. For returning students, coming back to campus and moving in is an all-day process that drains the energy out of everyone, and then we have to go to classes the next day. This leads to a question that my friends and I have thought about since we were sophomores: Why do returning students move in the day right before the first day of classes?
Lasell and other schools that set up their move-ins this way should think about its impact on returning students. It essentially throws us into the thick of it. Plenty of other schools around the country allow their students to move in throughout the week before classes start. If Lasell decided to do this, there is a possibility that traffic and parking on campus would be alleviated during move-in. Allowing returning students to move in during the week before classes would also reduce a lot of the stress we feel as we prepare to adjust to our new schedules.
However, there is a barrier that returning students have to cross to get to campus early. That is the fifty dollar a night early move-in fee. This fee deters returning students from moving in early because who wants to pay an extra fifty dollars every night before the scheduled move-in date? Writing this, I think about the out-of-state students like me who have to travel hours to get to campus. This fee is an extra cost to all students right at the beginning of the school year, when students are already spending their money.
Although I had my early move-in fee waived for my campus job, I believe that it shouldn’t exist in the first place. No student should have to pay more money for a room they are already paying for through their tuition. I understand that Lasell is not “open” for returning students yet, but having returning students on campus while first-year students move in might make the first-year students more comfortable being on campus.
They might even get the chance to meet more people that have gone through the same things they are going through as they adjust to life in college. I’m writing this not to put this issue onto the first-year students, but to show how allowing returning students on campus earlier may be beneficial to the lives of everyone on campus and help to create that sense of community that Lasell has.
Overall, I believe that Lasell, for future Lasers, should take into consideration the community aspects of allowing returning students on campus. Not only will students be engaged with events going on around campus, but they will have the ability to prepare themselves for what is to come.
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