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Janelle Turnquest
English 101
12 December 2014

Freshman Should Have Cars Too

Emory University made the executive decision to ban cars for their freshman class. The
rule has been in effect since at least 1997. My understanding is that the rule serves two purposes.
The rule encourages freshman to participate with on-campus activities. Without a car they are
more likely to stay on campus or to use the transportation opportunities offered to groups of
students rather than individual travel. The other purpose was to reduce the demand for parking
(Dean Nair). There are plenty of things that the freshman class at Emory University has to get
used to in order to survive through the year. In that way we are no different from freshmen at any
other college. For most, this is the longest time we have gone without seeing our parents. For
most, this is the first time living in a different state and for some maybe even a different country.
As if that wasnt life changing enough, for all, it is the first time we have to make our own
decisions. The transition to college would be much easier if we were able to have a source of
transportation that was ours. It would be nice to have the capability to get into a car and grab
some groceries for your dorm room, or go out and explore Atlanta which is one of the best cities,
or just go to a movie to relax from the stressful weeks that go by? All of these things were so
accessible before attending Emory University and now theyre not. Some think preventing
freshmen from having a car on campus is great while others think that the rule is an issue. There
are many people who would have a lot to say about the reasons why freshmen should not be
allowed to have cars on Emory Universitys campus. After hearing most high school seniors

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answer last year to are you going to bring your car to college next year? There seem to be two
main questions practically every incoming freshman asks themselves when thinking about what
things really want to bring on campus? One, does the university allow cars on campus? If yes,
then will their parents let them bring their car to campus? Parents and the people who are in
Parking and Transportation on Emorys campus seem to be the two most important
perspectives on this topic. While Emorys rule has two main purposes there are too many
exceptions and missed opportunities that this rule doesnt consider. Megan Wilson who is the
Assistant Director of Admission at Western Carolina University stated it is important to decide
how and why a car can help you. A freshman at Emory University doesnt even have the
opportunity to contemplate the reasons why they should or shouldnt bring their car. Wilson
mentions that a students car could be either a necessity, a convenience, or just a comfort.
Emory University should give the freshman class an option to decide whether or not they would
like to have a car on campus because there are loads of opportunities being missed along with the
extreme inconvenience it causes on a day to day basis. Just by listening to conversations and
talking to other students on campus it has been well addressed that students have wanted to take
a job and have not been able to because they do not have a car. From personal experience there
have been plenty of Sundays that I have wanted to attend a certain church service but have not
been able to because I do not know anyone who would be willing to either go or take me. I also
have family who live on the outskirts of Atlanta who have basketball games that I would love to
attend or just spend time with them. There have been two terrible encounters where I got
stranded, at night, because my phone unexpectedly died which led me with no way of contacting
anyone without asking someone else to use their phone to call a taxi. If I was lucky, which
thankfully I was, someone who I knew called someone else for me to get me an Uber. It isnt the

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best situation to be in having to rely on technology to get you home safely. If I had a car it would
not be in difficult situations like these.
Emory University isnt alone when it comes to banning cars from their campus.
According to Campus Car Bans there are multiple schools that have also chosen to restrict the
freshman class of their university and not allow them to have vehicles. Two of which are Purdue
University and Bowdoin University. According to Purdues website only a select few freshman
are allowed to have cars. They have a special process where freshman apply to be in a lottery and
whoever is selected is allowed to bring their car to campus after the schools October break.
Bowdoin University, however, has a very similar take on the issue to Emory. Bowdoins
President, Barry Mills, states, Having a car at Bowdoin is mostly a luxury, and hardly ever a
necessity. While this is a comment specific to his school, this aligns well with Emorys stance
as well. Bowdoin University also believes that allowing freshman to not have cars create[s] a
common experience for first-year students at a time when socioeconomic diversity continues to
expand at Bowdoin. Its evident that Bowdoin University prefers their students who come from
all different backgrounds to have this commonality and share the same experience of learning
how to be independent without having a car. Emorys view is very similar in the way they want
freshmen to be involved in campus life and campus activities. While this is an understandable
stance, there are plenty of opportunities for students to share commonalities with other students
having vehicles that will make it much easier for students to go and explore the new towns and
cities they are either near or in for the first time. For Emory students Atlanta is one of the
biggest, most fun, and innovative cities, but it is not the most convenient or the cheapest cities to
explore without a car.

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Emory University could easily argue that there are plenty of other ways to get around the
city and that they even offer some of them. The public transportation is a cheap way to get from
place to place. It goes by the name of MARTA. The issue with using MARTA is that it could
take up to one or two hours just to get somewhere that could take a person only thirty minutes in
a car because of all the stops the bus has to make. More important than the lengthy rides, there is
an unspoken rule that Marta is not supposed to be ridden by young adults between the hours of
eight PM and eight AM. If you ask any student what is one thing that you have learned about
riding Marta they will most likely tell you that at night you are to not ride that bus because you
could be attacked or feel uncomfortable in one way shape or form. According to Emorys
Parking and Transportation there is the Night Owl which is Emorys own shuttle during late
hours of the day but that too isnt safe to be on alone at night. Yeah everyone knows that you do
not ride Marta between the hours of eight PM and eight AM stated Georgia Tech student Akash
Thaker. Also according to Emory University: Transportation and Parking there is the Emory
option to rent a car for the day through Enterprise Car Share. Enterprise Car Share sounds great.
Any student over the age of eighteen who has a license from any country for at least a year and
also has less than two incidents in the past three years and does not have any alcohol violations
could rent a car! Gas is included when a student first rents the car and there is a daily charge or
an hourly charge depending on how long the student has the car rented out for. It sounds like a
very easy process to drive all around the city or grab groceries or go downtown and do
something special, which it is. Unfortunately this eventually becomes too expensive. Uber and
Lyft are two very great mobile apps that allow anyone to put their current location in and have a
personal car pick that person up from wherever they are. It is extremely convenient when
thinking about the efficiency of getting from one location to another and how comfortable and

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easy it is to get from place to place. Of course as great as this sounds, and is, this too becomes
way too expensive for a college student to use. Sometimes it could cost ten dollars just to travel
two miles. There was a time Emory student Caroline Spurr mentioned It cost me thirty-five
dollars to get to the airport and just last week it cost me fifteen dollars just to travel for about ten
minutes. The costs begin to add up quickly just to make small trips here and there which would
normally cost about two to three dollars in gas money for a car. With all of these transportation
ideas it seems that there is always an ultimatum. Does a student choose to go the cheap route and
possibly put themselves in danger or does the student choose the route that becomes much more
expensive but is much safer and more efficient?
Parents, the main rule enforcers, think about the alternatives to what their children need
to use in order to get around it seems that all the possible situations their children could end up
dont always come to mind. Despite the difficulties their children may go through, parents are
also sometimes in favor of not allowing their children to have vehicles at school. If someone
were to think like a parent that person would easily come to the conclusion that it is important to
be cost effective and to be safe. With that being said, according to Aggressive Behavior While
Driving as Predictor of Self-reported Car Crashes reckless driving and car crashes coincide.
Parents dont want their sons and daughters to get in the car after having a drink that contains
alcohol, nor do they want their kids getting into the car with someone else who has done the
same. When a car is easy access it is much more probable that something like that could happen.
Along with that, just like the study says, reckless driving and car accidents correlate and it is
very well known that the people in Atlanta drive crazy and drive fast. It can be hard for
experienced drivers to keep up and have good defensive driving skills but it is even harder for
drivers who have had their license for two years at the most to keep up. Parents have every right

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to be worried about that but it is time for freshman in college to learn how to drive safely while
chaotic things are happening around them. Not only that but they have to trust their children to
make good decisions about who they may or may not get into a vehicle with.
Money is also a big factor. Emory University charged their students six hundred and
sixty-five dollars to park their cars for the year. Compare Emorys costs of a parking permit to a
campus like Union College for example. According to Union College they charge their students
fifteen dollars for a parking permit. There are plenty of things that could affect the costs of a
parking permit but Emorys price is extremely high compared to many. Along with parking
permits, there is a good possibility that theres just not enough money to build other parking
garages which would be needed if freshman were allowed to bring their cars. The only place on
campus where freshman would be able to park as of now is the Peavine parking deck and there
arent enough spots there to accommodate that. The solution to that problem would to be
increase the price of the parking permit to where it needed to be to where a new parking deck
could be built and allow people to make a decision about if they would buy it or not.
Should My College Student Have a Car on Campus? brings up questions for parents
and teens to think about. When many students think about the luxuries of bringing their cars they
often dont think about how comfortable and willing they would be to allowing their friends to
borrow their cars, or to be the designated driver all the time, or to think about how they are going
to pay for parking tickets as they start to appear. According to this source these are the kind of
things that have to be thought by the parents and freshman who would be put into those
situations.
Despite how hard it would be and despite the alternative options there are to get around,
after interviewing multiple students from Emory University, it is clear that freshmen would like

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to have their car. Anna Fuhr, a freshman at Emory replied with It sucks and I absolutely hate it.
All I want to do is have a car. I volunteer for kids and I have to rent a car in order to get to them
and there are often times that I want or need to get off campus for food and it is really starting to
get expensive and I hate having to take an Uber as well because that too is expensive. Another
freshman, Ashley Powers replied, I would really like to be able to have a car because I would be
able to go home and get off campus for things, but it is also doable to not have a car even though
I dont really like it at all. An Emory sophomore, Hannah Meyer, stated I dont have the
money to have a car on campus but it wouldve been really nice to have a car for my freshman
year because there were multiple things that I would want to do but wasnt able to do because I
couldnt drive myself nor did I have the money to always pay for an Uber trip somewhere. Not
having a car has seemed like much of hassle to many of the freshmen students here at Emory
University. A freshman from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas by the name of
Abby Argo who is allowed to have her car on campus said I LOVE having my car! I use it
every day and it is great. We do everything from airport runs to seeing sporting events to going
out to the movies to going to target and getting food. If I didnt have my car my freshman year
would be totally different. Along with Abby Argo, Christine Evans, another freshman from the
University of North Texas who is also allowed to have her car said I love having my car on
campus! It gives me a chance to explore the new place I live! I hate the lack of parking there is
tough because sometimes it is difficult for me to find parking. I also think it limits freshmen to
what theyre allowed to do. Not only does it seem much better to own a vehicle on campus
because of how much easier things would be, it is also another safety issue.
Despite all the reasons that there are that Emory University has decided to not to allow
their freshman class to not have cars, it should be a time to think about reconsidering the idea of

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having freshman have their cars on campus. When talking to the freshmen who were allowed to
have their cars on campus it was obvious that the freshmen here at Emory University were
missing out on something. Those students are able to have freedom. While it is manageable to
not have a car on campus it would be really nice. There are so many people that get homesick
their first year and who live close far enough away from home to not make the trip often but
close enough to make the trip sometimes but they cant because they dont have their car.
Exploring the Atlanta and going out on excursions and having the ability to get food that isnt
either on campus, or Dunkin Donuts, or at Emory Village would be so nice. People are right,
freshmen dont need cars on campus to survive, but it would make surviving that much easier
and ultimately thats what freshman year is about.

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Work Cited
Argo Abby. Telephone Interview. 3 Nov. 2014
Download PDFs." Aggressive Behavior While Driving as Predictor of Self-reported Car
Crashes. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022437502000531
Campus Car Bans." Campus Car Bans. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.aashe.org/resources/campus-car-bans
"Campus News." Bowdoin to Ban Cars for First-Year Students in 2009, (Bowdoin). N.p., n.d.
Web. 16 Nov. 2014.
http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/archives/1bowdoincampus/005338.shtml
Evans Christine. Telephone Interview. 3 Nov. 2014
Frequently Asked Questions:." Emory University: Transportation and Parking Services. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2014. <http://transportation.emory.edu/view/view_faqs/&faqcat=1090
Fuhr Anna. In Person Interview. 10 Nov 2014
Meyer Hannah. Telephone Interview. 3 Nov. 2014
Nair Dean. Email Interview. 18 Nov. 2014
Parking and Traffic." - Campus Safety. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2014.
http://www.union.edu/offices/safety/parking/
"Parking." Parking. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.
http://www.housing.purdue.edu/ResidentialLife/parking.html
Powers Ashley. In Person Interview. 10 Nov. 2014

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Should My College Student Have a Car on Campus?" College Parents of America. N.p., n.d.
Web. 04 Nov. 2014. http://www.collegeparents.org/members/resources/articles/shouldmy-college-student-have-car-campus
Spurr Caroline. In Person Interview. 10 Dec. 2014
Thaker Akash. In Person Interview. 1 Nov. 2014
Undergraduate Housing :: Parking & Transportation." Undergraduate Housing :: Parking &
Transportation. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.emory.edu/HOUSING/UNDERGRAD/parktrans.html

Wilson, Megan. "Freshmen: Should I Bring My Car to Campus? - Smart College Visit."Smart
College Visit. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.smartcollegevisit.com/2010/07/freshmen-should-i-bring-my-car-tocampus.html

Janelle,
You take an impassioned stance here, and you do good work countering the arguments on the other
side. However, the paper could use revisions both at the sentence-level and the macro-level. At the
sentence level, you tend to use more words than are needed. Read aloud or visit the Writing Lab to
identify places that need revision. (I mentioned one of these in the intro. paragraph that you did not reword.) Also, a more aggressive approach to organization grouping pieces of your argument that fit
together more logically rather than working through the issue in a narrative, less formal fashion would
improve the strength of the argument.
Thesis/Organization: 22/30
Evidence/Details: 24/30
Grammar/Mechanics: 15/20

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MLA Formatting: 19/20
Grade: 80