Many students ask themselves the question when they get to school “should I bring my car to campus?”

Honestly, that is not an easy question to answer. There are so many pros and cons to bringing a car to campus. Here are some of them.

An advantage of having a car is that it makes it a lot easier to get off campus. Linfield is a small school in an even smaller town with not a lot of things to do. There are so many cool things to see and do outside of McMinnville.

With a car, you could easily take a day trip over to Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast, or up to Portland for a day of shopping and utilize the places and things around McMinnville.

It is really easy to make some quick trips to the grocery store or a late-night trip to Domino’s for some garlic bread knots, because who doesn’t love garlic bread knots at 2 a.m.

Honestly, there will be nights when food from Dillin just isn’t cutting it and you don’t have anything in your room. Having a car on campus is a great way to get some late night snacks without waking up your roommate to bother them about borrowing their car, but not everyone is going to be that close to their roommate.

Now let’s get into the cons of bringing a car onto campus. First off, you have to worry about buying a parking pass from College Public Safety. A parking pass is not necessarily cheap, costing $85 for the whole year.

Having a parking pass allows you to park anywhere on campus, but if a student doesn’t feel like spending that kind of money, they’re only allowed to park on designated public streets.

A second con that comes with bringing a car to campus is having to deal with a lack of parking or finding a spot that is far from your dorm.

Anyone that lives in the six pack knows the struggle of trying to find a good parking spot that is also in close proximity to the dorm.

Residence buildings that are not included in the six pack also see the  major lack of parking spaces.

This brings me to my next question, “should there be more parking on campus?” Absolutely. There is a definite shortage of parking on campus and it’s something that a lot of students struggle with. Sometimes students will find a great spot in front of their dorm but then they won’t want to move their car out of fear of losing their perfect spot.

To alleviate that problem, there should be large parking spots offered near the bigger dorms. As of now, there is a small row of parking along the street between Mahaffey and Hewitt Hall, as well as on the streets that line the six pack.

Often those streets are completely full and students will have to spend an extended amount of time driving around trying to find a spot.

Really, if you ask anyone about the pros and cons of bringing a car to campus, there are going to be many different responses.

It isn’t a straightforward answer and is completely up to the student.