California Lutheran University should open its Oxnard satellite campus to undergraduate commuter students. 

Emily Yamamoto, assistant registrar for academic scheduling and planning, said the Oxnard campus was intended to allow graduate students living in the northern part of Ventura County to participate in the grant programs. 

If the extension is meant to shorten the commute for graduate students, then it should also open up for undergraduate students who commute from those same areas. 

According to “How to Survive the Commuter Student Life in College” by Eric Eng, commuter students’ college experience can be more difficult than that of students who live on campus. 

“Managing their transportation, scheduling, and time management … can be difficult to balance with academic, work, and personal responsibilities,” Eng wrote.

Eng wrote that commuter students will also have to wake up early and spend more time in traffic, which can be unpredictable. 

Cynthia Cortez, a senior at Cal Lutheran, is a commuter from Oxnard who said she spends 30-45 minutes on the road Monday through Friday. Cortez said that she has to plan her day out accordingly to make sure that she arrives on time. 

Cortez said she always tries to plan for the unexpected when heading to school, but it is hard to plan for any traffic that occurs when she is already on the road. 

“I always have to keep in mind, like, at what time I have to leave my house in order to make it on time to class because like, even if I sleep-in like maybe 15 minutes, by the time that I head out of my house … I’ll be 30 minutes late to class so sometimes I don’t show up to class,” Cortez said. 

Cortez also said that she has had to spend more on gas this semester compared to last semester because she now has to drive to Cal Lutheran five days a week. 

“I do spend roughly, like, around like $75-$80 a week for gas,” Cortez said.

According to the AAA Gas Price Average report, the average gas price for Ventura County is between $4.62 and $5.01. The cost of re-fueling one’s car multiple times a week adds up and ultimately hurts commuters economically. 

Cortez is a liberal studies in education major, which requires her to complete 60 observation hours in classrooms. Cal Lutheran works closely with an elementary school located in Thousand Oaks to complete these hours, which she said is often hard to fit into her schedule. 

Cortez said that allowing commuter students to connect with other primary schools closer to home would help with their commute and could help them fit the hours into their schedule. 

“I feel like definitely them opening it up to, like, the cities that most of their commuters are in because I know, like, a lot of people do commute from Oxnard,” Cortez said. “As commuters, you do have to plan for your internship or for your observational hours that you do have, and you have to, like, make sure that you’re in the area.”

Yamamoto said the space is currently shared between the Cal Lutheran graduate program, Oxnard College, and the Center for Nonprofit Leadership. According to Yamamoto, many of the classes offered by the graduate program are held in the evenings and on weekends. 

Yamamoto said the Oxnard extension houses ten classrooms, two computer labs, staff/faculty offices, a conference room, and study spaces.

According to Cal Lutheran’s website, the space is open from 3:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. This could be an opportunity to offer morning undergraduate classes at the Oxnard location for commuters.

Since most of the graduate school classes are offered during the evening, I think it would be beneficial to at least offer morning classes at the Oxnard satellite campus for undergraduate commuter students.

If it is not possible to offer classes at the Oxnard location, then more hybrid or online courses should be offered for undergraduate students.

“I feel like [hybrid courses] would definitely help because if the class is only offered, like, all in person, how it is now, it definitely is hard to, like, commute there every single day and get their own time,” Cortez said. 

I commute to campus every day from Oxnard, and I juggle two jobs and an internship. I have to wake up two hours earlier than my scheduled class time every morning to make sure I am prepared for the day and my commute. On average, I spend around $70 on gas, per tank, and I have to fill up twice a week because of how much I commute. 

Not only would opening up the Oxnard campus help me, it would also help other commuter students. If it is not possible to share these resources, then I think more hybrid and online courses should be considered for undergraduate students.