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By: Ian Essling
SUGAR GROVE, IL - Veteran students know, and new students will soon find out, that parking is a challenge at Waubonsee Community College. Everyone knows that, especially at the beginning of a semester, you have to get to campus early, and you have to be willing to either walk, or claw and fight for prime parking spots.
A number of theories have emerged as to how to best avoid parking incidents and how to maximize your chances at getting a parking spot somewhere within 300 miles of the front door.
These strategies play out every semester, however, no one was prepared for the debacle that awaited students the first day of class.
Waubonsee lost a number of parking spots this semester due to a variety of construction projects around campus. To combat this problem, a new West parking lot was built to hold additional cars.
The only problem was that the West lot was not finished on time. Instead, the entrance was still blocked off as the contractor struggled to complete the work. Waubonsee students were faced with a daunting task; find a parking place where none existed.
Waubonsee students, faculty and staff literally used up every parking spot on campus.
Cars began to appear on grassy medians, parked in no parking zones, and even, comically so, on a hill that leads into the side of a maintenance building on the north side of campus.
To their credit, campus police helped alleviate the stress by suspending the issuing of parking tickets for the duration of the parking issues.
Many students voiced their displeasure over the situation.
Most students interviewed for this article gave a resounding "terrible" as their answer for how parking was the first week of class.
The overwhelming majority also gave comments that were a variant on the theme of "it sucks," "it can't possibly be worse," and "are you kidding me?"
Amanda Selk, a Waubonsee student, began carpooling this semester in an effort to avoid the parking situation. "It's ridiculous," she said, stating further she often had cars following her waiting for her to leave so they could take her place.
Most students seem to agree; Marisella Urbina said that parking has been "pretty difficult [.] I have to come here at least twenty minutes before I would if parking were semi-decent."
Waubonsee has experienced tremendous growth in the past few years, leading some students to question whether or not Waubonsee administration has been paying attention to those figures.
"They know what volume of students [attend WCC], and they should have had the new parking ready," Leslie Moore, Waubonsee student, stated.
Campus Operations did not return calls seeking comment. |
