Preparing for winter at Saint Rose

Since Albany received its first taste of winter snow fairly early this year (remember that late October snow?), I think many people were caught off-guard. I know I was surprised when my car door was frozen and it took several tries to open it. Then, I (along with many others) had the joy of scraping rock-hard ice off the windshield. With no gloves. Thus, why I feel that we were unprepared for the first snowfall.

Having lived in the Capital Region my entire life and as a former resident student at Saint Rose, I’m used to the winter weather. But that doesn’t mean that I enjoy it. Now as a commuter student, I have to prepare to battle the morning drive to campus in all sorts of weather. I have a few tips for both resident and commuter students about handling the winter weather at Saint Rose.

For commuter students:

• Leave extra (and I mean EXTRA) time to drive to campus. Snow may be pretty to look at from inside your house, but it’s not pretty to clean off your car. Removing ice from your car is even more challenging—make sure you have an ice scraper (and gloves!) ready.
• Be careful when driving on the streets around campus. The campus and surrounding neighborhoods are full of people-traffic. Keep an eye out for pedestrians crossing the road both in and out of crosswalks.
• You will receive frequent emails about various parking lots being plowed. Make sure you check your email to see if a certain parking lot will be closed for plowing.
• If it is snowing when you’re already on campus, be prepared to clean off your car and perhaps shovel snow away from your tires. Therefore, it helps to not only have an ice scraper in your car, but also a small shovel.

For resident students:

• Even though you don’t have to drive to campus, still give yourself extra time to walk to your classes, especially if you have to cross Madison or Western Avenue. The roads and sidewalks can be slippery, even if they have been salted.
• When crossing streets around campus, keep an eye out for cars. You may think you have enough time to run across the road, but be aware that the road can be slippery. You can risk falling on an icy patch or the driver may not be able to stop the car in time. It’s best to wait for the stoplight to turn red and then cross the street.
• Proper footwear is everything. You don’t have to wear heavy-duty Eskimo boots, but wear something with more traction on the bottom. Sorry, flip-flops won’t cut it anymore in a foot of snow. (As a side note: once it reaches about 50 degrees in the spring, many students on campus will break out the flip-flops.)

Do you have some tips on how to deal with the winter weather at Saint Rose? Leave your tips in the comments below!