For the past 18-and-a-half years, I have lived in Houston, the self-proclaimed oil capital of the world. Accordingly, with just about everyone driving a car, public transportation is virtually non existent. With no subway or commuter rail, the inner city is roughly connected with a patchwork of old, unreliable buses.
Needless to say, moving to the Boston area was quite the adjustment. Immediately, I took full advantage of the public transportation. In the first two weeks of school, I made my way to my brother's house in Allston, Mass. I visited friends at Harvard University and even journeyed to the airport, through a mix of trains, subways, buses and the subway-bus hybrid known as the "silver line."

While I do know that recent fare hikes and service cuts have caused some to fret about the usefullness of public transportation, I feel as a college student in the Boston area, that the MBTA is one of the greatest resources at my disposal. Every Brandeis student should be encouraged to explore the great city of Boston and take advantage of the ease and accessibility of the MBTA. Oftentimes, when I take the commuter rail or 70 bus into the city, I can count the number of fellow Brandeis students on one hand.

As someone who is used to the independence of driving a car during high school, I was somewhat concerned coming to Brandeis about the idea of going stir-crazy in an isolated suburb.
However, the commuter rail and the 70 bus on Main Street have allowed me to regain this independence with two routes into Cambridge, day or night, seven days a week.
Further, public transportation has given me a unique opportunity to explore and get my bearings in a new city.

This has allowed for independence in a way that getting a ride from another student would not, because the requirement to explore the city yourself is quite endearing, and is an indubitable way to become acquainted with getting around the city. It is often said that a person will only make the same mistake once, and I can think of no truer words for anyone who has accidentally boarded the wrong subway at South Station.

Taking public transportation has forced me to come to grips with a better understanding with the tantalizing way this city's street system has been laid out, and has caused me to develop a rudimentary way of navigating around Boston.                .

Since Waltham is a suburb of Boston, and not directly within the city limits, students may feel removed from the city in a way that students at Harvard University or Boston University may not. However, even though we are geographically outside of the city, we are not outside of the greater Boston area, and we are certainly not outside of the scope of the MBTA's coverage area.

With so many young people in the Boston area, we should celebrate our cultural unity with the surrounding areas and be more open towards a commute, using the MBTA, into the city every so often.
As many Brandeis students do not have cars, the MBTA allows freedom of transportation for all of us. Indeed, being from a place without any mass transit system to speak of, I am not going to waste one day or squander one moment simply because I do not have a car on campus.
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