Any Great Tips For A Mobile Grad Student?

December 26, 2007 7:42 AM

Any Great Tips for an Mobile Grad Student?

I am a UC grad student living in San Francisco. I commute two hours door-to-door to get to my department in Davis. Furthermore, this quarter I am taking some classes at Berkeley. To put it simply, I live a very mobile life.

Just as an extreme example, my worst days entail:

1. Wake up in SF
2. Bike to BART
3. BART to Berkeley
4. Bike to Amtrak
5. Amtrak to Davis
6. Amtrak to Richmond BART
7. BART to SF
8. Bike Home

Does anyone have any tips for people seemingly permanently on the go?

posted by chrisalbon to Work & Money (7 answers total)

Yikes, that's some traveling! And as a grad student? Wow, you must have unbelievable work ethic. I never went home when I was in grad school, so I cannot imagine 4 hours each day dedicated to traveling.

Your daily life doesn't sound much different than my other career of entertainment business touring. Always working, never home, etc, etc. I assume that you have the basics covered, right?

1. Always have 1.5 portable meals on you at any time (energy bars, granola, etc)
2. iPod (or other music player) and buds
3. The Analgesics Bottle (some of your favorite pain reliever plus an antihistamine, antacid tablets, dramamine (for those times you cannot stop puking), and whatever else you want in there
4. Even when I did NOT smoke, I used to keep a few cigs in my traveling case in the event that I had some situation where I needed to calm down immediately (ie, getting mugged, accident, etc) [obviously not recommended for everyone]
5. a nametag of who you are, what your medical comps are, and where to send your bag in the event that it becomes lost/you become lost for some reason
6. Of course I always had my Gerber tool (multi-tool), Mini-Mag lite converted to LED, a climbing pouch with a decent sized carabiner, and some leather/neoprene working gloves, 3-fingered. Truss can be cold when working in the dead of winter!

As of late, in my laptop bag (which is a backpack-type bag) I keep this great little case for holding USB flash drives (holds 4 drives, about 2.5" square by half-an-inch thick), and a laptop hard drive (40GB) in an external case.

Lifehacker had an awesome post on what people keep in their traveling daily bags. They also have three more articles just like this with hundreds of great go-bag ideas. Check it out.
posted by jimmyhutch at 8:16 AM on December 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

Personally, I'd say "savor it." You're getting loads more exercise than most people just by living your daily life, while most of the known universe suffers in cars and gridlock and sedentariness. Amtrak and BART are godsends compared to dealing with peak-hour traffic, as I'm sure you know, and you have a few hours of built-in "think time" each day.

That said, it isn't really clear what sort of information you're seeking. Are you looking for ways to entertain yourself on your train rides? Advice on dealing with the stress of long commutes? Time-management ideas for your precious non-commute time?

Clarify the question and the answers will multiply. :-)
posted by mykescipark at 8:25 AM on December 26, 2007

Any of your classes available via podcast so you can skip physical attendance? Or get a classmate to record them for you? If that's not possible, make sure you're using your travel time productively: if you treat the BART / Amtrak bits like a travelling office you can cut down on the amount of time you'll have to spend studying at home...
posted by TrashyRambo at 9:03 AM on December 26, 2007

On top of everyone else's good advice, i'd add to keep yourself hydrated with all that running around - I carry around a big bottle of water wherever i go (something like this) and also have that face mist spray on hand for stressful public transportation times - it's a nice way to cool down after shuffling around in hot buses, trains, etc.
posted by ukdanae at 9:12 AM on December 26, 2007

Maybe you can schedule your Davis meetings to certain days? Or consider getting a crashing in a friends spare room for a couple of nights a week?

Also a UCD grad student here
posted by special-k at 3:20 PM on December 26, 2007

Or consider crashing in a...

(Coffee just kicked in)
posted by special-k at 3:39 PM on December 26, 2007

The LifeHacker 'Go bag' post above is similar to 'What's in your bag?' on Flickr. I don't travel as much as you, but I get an hour+ in some days - I've found the best thing for making travel productive is having a well organized bag, that lets me get at everything with little hassle - I use a Kensington Saddlebag Ultra(*), which is just wide enough that it fits comfortably into an open seat next to you (and the strap loops over headrests to hold it upright during a panic stop). It's also about the right size for a large pannier basket.
If you use a laptop regularly, you might like this, though I've never used it.

* - Unfortunately, the bag's unfortunately falling apart(Minus for this model), but I told Kensington, and they sent me a replacement(Plus for them in general).
posted by Orb2069 at 6:30 PM on December 26, 2007