City Smarts

Ever since I have moved into the city and started school I have been ever-insistent on learning anything and everything possible about safe and smart city living. The first time my friends and I went on the subway to center city, we had some trouble with hustlers on the train, and my roommate lost $100 gambling. Lesson learned; never gamble on the subways or play games with people you don't know.
As I come from a small town, I do not really know much about walking across the streets or anything about jaywalking. During the first week I jaywalked a few times and almost got hit by cars on both occasions. After walking around campus all the time, I learned a simple yet valuable lesson; wait for the green light or the white man to cross the road.
Drexel culture is obviously making us smarter, preparing us for the world ahead, and saving our lives all at the same time. Although those were minor lessons that most people would already know, a rural farmland kid may have never been to the city or lived in a place where stuff like that is common knowledge. My daily running routine was past a few buildings and circling around three or four farms. I lived in a small town where everyone walked everywhere and there was no public transportation. It is a great change for someone like me who never had an urban setting to experience what others do on a daily basis: traffic and hundreds of people walking around minding their own business. Yeah, learning not to jaywalk and not to get hustled might seem like a lame lesson to learn, but everyone has to learn sometime, and learning the hard way is the best way to not make the same mistake again.