Courtesy of UhaWeb

Before I begin, let me first say I am not complaining about the price of parking here.

I know when most people see a headline about parking, they think to themselves how this is just another person complaining about how it costs so much money and all that jazz. But no, this isn’t me complaining as it is more or less giving a suggestion that would be fair to upperclassmen.

The good thing that the school allows is for freshmen to have their cars on campus. Many colleges don’t allow students to bring a car until they are sophomore, sometimes even a junior.

This was actually one of the reasons I wanted to come here just because I could bring my car and indeed I did my freshmen year. However, since freshmen are allowed to bring their cars, there should be a system in place on where people can park.

Currently, I’m a junior and I have an internship three times a week. Since I come back to school in the evenings, most of the time there aren’t any sports available in N-lot.

Therefore I end up parking my car in N-lot Extension. When it is freezing outside, which for the majority of the semester so far has been, the walk back to my apartment can be treacherous.

Although I can’t say for sure, I’m sure other upperclassman who have internships or jobs feel the same way when they have to walk a while to get to their cars.

So my suggestion is rather simple. First off, don’t get rid of the parking for freshmen. It’s a good selling point for the University and it is helpful.

However, their either needs to be assigned parking, or freshmen should not be allowed to park in N lot.

I think the parking system should be similar to housing selection. Students should be able to pick their parking spot based on the number of credits they have.

Since seniors and juniors are the most likely people to have an internship or job, this will give them an ample amount of time to get to their car.

The fact of the matter is that freshmen don’t have internships. If a freshman does have one, it is very rare. There may be some freshmen who have jobs, and if so maybe there can be a system in place where they can prove to public safety they have one, thus allowing them to get a good parking spot.

If that idea isn’t good, then the other simple thing is to not allow freshmen to park in N-lot since that is the most popular parking lot for residential students.

N-lot is right near the village, which is housing for upperclassmen. Upperclassmen shouldn’t have to park in other spots because freshmen take up all of N lot.

I apologize to the freshmen that probably don’t like this idea. I wouldn’t like this idea if I was a freshman, but once you get into your junior and senior year and you have an internship, you will understand where I’m coming from when there are no parking spots available.

So once again, this is just a suggestion that I hope can come to a realization in the coming years, even after I graduate.