There are many things to look out for when circling through the parking lots of East Tennessee State University in search of a spot. When arriving at your favorite lot, you have to compete with multiple other desperate parking-seekers and hope for the best.
Somewhat like a shark invasion, parking-seekers will circle the lots for as long as they have to in order to find their prey. Sometimes, the frustration sinks in too deep and people just go home.
Do not do this!
For the first week of the semester, I was the girl running across campus in tears. Even though I had arrived on campus almost an hour before my class, I would still struggle to find a parking spot. I would burst into tears for fear that I would have to park somewhere illegally and risk getting a ticket.
I tweeted about the matter and received many rebuttals about how I was just being a fat, lazy college kid who did not want to walk more than a few feet to get to class.
So, I put the notion to the test.
- Some people told me to park at BucRidge and catch the BucShot down the hill to campus – unsuccessful.
- Some people told me to park in the garage behind the Carnegie Hotel – extremely unsuccessful, and was told off by police.
- Some people told me to park at McDonald’s across the street from campus – super unsuccessful when an employee chased me down and told me that I couldn’t do that.
- Some people told me to park behind the Bojangles and Knights Pizza – somewhat successful, although I only got lucky because of someone pulling out as soon as I pulled into the lot.
Either way, when the Student Affairs Office emailed me that there are approximately 7,350 parking spots on campus, I felt like that was a large number. However, the ETSU FactBook says that there are almost double that number of students enrolled on campus.
