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5 Ways College Students Can Make The Most Of A Walk Across Campus

This article is more than 7 years old.

Efficiency, I choose you!

Last year, I spent 24 minutes and 54 seconds every weekday in necessary campus travel, which included trips to class, my work-study job and my evening shifts at the campus newspaper.

This may not seem like much time, but the minutes add up; over the course of the year, I walked for over two-and-a-half days, which does not even include walks to meals, club meetings and whatever semblance of a social life I try to maintain.

My campus isn’t a particularly large one – the University of Pennsylvania’s West Philadelphia campus is 299 acres. Students at some larger universities, like New York University or Rutgers University in New Brunswick , need to use transportation services to get to different parts of campus, which can make the class-to-class commute even longer.

Whether the trip to class is a minute or a mile, the efficient student can find a way to milk the time for all it’s worth. Instead of trekking through a flock of Pidgeys on Pokémon GO, consider these ways to double-dip your campus commute.

  1. Call your parents: My parents want regular updates about everything going on with life, which can often take over an hour of explaining. Get that hour back by calling during the day while walking. My average walk is five minutes, 47 seconds, which is more than enough time to give my parents the highlights. And, if the average English-speaker says 150 words per minute, we will have exchanged more words than in the Emancipation Proclamation, one of the most famous speeches in American history.
  2. Jog: This is a triple-threat option: jogging gets you to class, saves time and burns calories. Jogging at 5 mph instead of walking at 3.5 mph can save over five minutes per mile. My almost six-minute average walk becomes four minutes and three seconds. Additionally, a Harvard Medical School study says pedestrians burn over 100 calories more when they run 5 mph than when they walk 3.5 mph. When comparing these speeds over a mile, jogging burns about 34 more calories, which is more than the average person burns while watching a half-hour of TV.
  3. Listen to news podcasts: According to a Baylor study, the average college student spends 73 minutes a day browsing Facebook and the Internet on their phones. About three quarters of Americans use these mediums as a way to get news according to a Reuters Institute study, so why not redirect some of that news-skimming time to your walk without the dangers of looking at your phone while walking? Recent episodes of the most popular news podcasts on iTunes average just under 41 minutes, meaning the campus traveler can spend a couple days of walking with a more efficient way to learn.
  4. Have your phone read you class notes: Even better than listening to what you don’t know is listening to what you do know – or at least are supposed to know. While the App Store has plenty of text-to-speech apps, with recent versions of iOS, you can go to Settings, General, Accessibility, Speech and then turn on Speak Selection. It’s not just educational; it’s efficient. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the average college students engages in educational activities for 3.3 hours per weekday. Either save time by incorporating part of that into your class commutes, or absorb more knowledge by going the extra mile during your miles.
  5. Answer emails: The Baylor study also estimated that students spend 48.5 minutes a day sending emails. This bulk of time can easily be reduced in transit, and between Speak Selection and voice-to-text features, you can handle all your personal communications without having to stare at your phone while walking.

Students rarely realize how much time is spent walking between classes – or that that time can be used productively. These methods will cut back on time after-hours to make more time for what really matters – time with friends, sleep or, probably, Pokémon GO.