Random fact of the day: Mississippi State has parking problems. I know it might seem crazy and unfathomable, but it is true. Most of the time I wish I had a sturdy burro to carry me from my car to class. That isn’t going to happen.And even though the distance is bad, it’s not the only problem anymore. In fact, now that Mississippians have the privilege of being embarrassed that our state is officially the fattest state in the country, I think it’s possibly a good thing that some people are forced to get exercise by walking to class.
But the one thing that really gets under my skin about the parking issues is that when students complain about it, Mike Harris, our director of parking services, rebuttals by pretty much calling them liars.
In a recent article, students were quoted saying that the entire shuttle system was too slow and caused some to be late for class. Harris said he disagreed. Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure the people who actually ride the shuttle will know if it is slow or not. And if I had to guess, I would say that our director of parking services doesn’t have to park at the coliseum and ride the shuttle to work every morning.
He also made suggestions of where students can park to fix these, in his words, “so-called” problems. Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Harris, that I’m not happy enough about walking 7,000 miles to my classroom in the blazing heat, and I won’t be any happier about it when it turns frigidly cold.
But I do leave 30 minutes before class like he suggested and the only thing that gets solved is that I’m waiting in a long line of cars 30 minutes before my class starts.
Sure, it’s terrible walking in 90-degree weather to class, but I care more about paying $65 to park in a dirt lot and then play a challenging real life game of Frogger through Hardy Road traffic every morning. It seems strange that we don’t have enough money to pave this parking lot, yet we have the money for about a half-dozen new signs at the school’s entrances.
Now, for those students who live on sorority or fraternity row, parking isn’t as difficult. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have problems also. Let’s talk about how the number of shuttles that go through these areas got cut down. Students end up getting smashed into the shuttle and are not even able to breathe. The only thing worse than being crammed in there is that sometimes students don’t get on at all because of the maximum capacity rule and many students are late for class waiting on the next bus to come.
So, to all students who are inconvenienced by parking, shuttle stops or anything that you don’t feel your tuition money helps, go ahead and complain. Let it all out. Until I am given a good reason as to why we get new signs and flowerbeds before we get new parking lots, more shuttles, better emergency stations on campus and even air conditioning in Allen 13, I’m going to say that it is OK to complain about things we are unhappy with.