If there’s one thing my college is known for, it’s the stairs. The campus is on a hill, so instead of students biking, skateboarding, or taking a shuttle to class we trudge up up up and then down down down.
People joke that they never have to go to the gym; climbing the stairs to class is their workout. And they’re not exaggerating–just getting around campus is exhausting.
After being on crutches for two weeks, I was hyperaware of the number of stairs I take on a daily basis. Now that I can walk again, I spent a day meticulously counting the number of stairs I climbed.
503 up, 468 down. 971 stairs in one day.
Note also that my schedule differs each day: those numbers are from a fairly average Tuesday, but on longer days I probably walk up to 1500 stairs.
It’s tiring, but I deal with it. I ascend and descend all day long. After all, the journey of a thousand stairs begins with a single step.
This post is part of my April A to Z Challenge. For more All Things College posts, click here.
Victim to Charm 
And this is why Ithaca was never in my consideration for college options :) Glad you are mobile again!
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I once saw a tour group in which the dad used a wheelchair, and you could tell the tour guide wasn’t sure how to run the tour. At least on crutches I COULD do stairs, albeit slowly.
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That is a lot of steps- I hope you’re feeling better now!
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I’m MUCH better but not 100%. It’s a journey. Thanks!
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Glad you’re feeling better and I’m winded after 14 stairs (yes that I counted) lol
Sooooo I have much work to do!
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I get winded on the longer stretches (living on essentially the 4th floor of my building!) but not so much after just one flight anymore!
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Crunches are tough at college. All those steps are probably good for you but I bet it was interesting this winter when it was so snowy and cold.
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It was difficult, especially when the college was negligent about shoveling & salting.
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What a great last sentence. I’m in love with it and want to put it in one of those beautiful pictures of quotes. Seriously though, not only is it true for you when you have to take all those stairs to get to class, but it’s that kind of a quote that you can relate to anything that you want to achieve in your life. In the end, all goals can be reached just by making that first step.
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It’s a play off of a Lao-Tzu quote, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” There are lots of quote pictures with it :) But it absolutely resonates deeply.
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My goodness, that’s a lot of staris. But hey, it’s all health ;-)
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Exactly!
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Wow, I should never go to your school! I can barely walk up the stairs to my second-floor apartment (thank God for an elevator!). Yeah, I know, I need to work-out more, but those stairs are also arranged in such a way that, being blind and very clumsy, it is hard to walk them even when I’m in good physical condition.
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There are some staircases here that are really steep or made weirdly so even I trip on them even though I look at my feet the whole time.
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I’m so glad I went to a school that was mostly flat! We biked from dorms to classes and in to town. That and California weather make me glad I went where I went!
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I’ve seen maybe three people bike here. It hardly seems worth it to bike, get off to walk a flight of stairs, and then carry on.
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Haha! My university (Exeter) has a gym on top of the hill. The hill is so steep and long it’s called “cardiac hill” and walking up is all the exercise you need.
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Our gym is luckily not on a hill but it is almost on the outer edge of campus so it’s not particularly motivating to go.
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Oh my. The college I attended had a completely flat campus. And yet at one point the school president toured the school in a wheelchair to see just how many areas weren’t handicap accessible. There were a bunch. They put in ramps after that.
Stephanie
http://stephie5741.blogspot.com
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That’s great, that the president was thinking about it! Here they have Student Accessibility Services in a super isolated and fairly inaccessible building, making me wonder who decided that.
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Whoa… That *is* a lot of stairs. It’ll keep you fit for sure, but going down is rough on the knees. (That sounds like a double-entendre–a bad one. Sorry about that.) I loved the last line, and your overall humor for a situation that must have many of your fellow students griping no-end. You’re cool, Sabina, and I love having met you through the A-to-Z :)
Guilie @ Quiet Laughter
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It’s really rough on my knees (and thanks for the terrible double entendre). So glad to have met you too!
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a college experience,
very costy and rewarding too.
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Definitely!
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Wow, that is a lot of stairs – how do wheelchair-bound students get around your campus? We have this problem on the campus where I work, it kinda evolved rather than being designed and there’s no direct route anywhere, most of them involving some flight of stairs. The disabled students have real problems getting around, especially if the lifts are not working – they’re working on making it easier.
Sophie
Sophie’s Thoughts & Fumbles
FB3X
Wittegen Press
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They don’t–our campus is known for its inaccessibility. If you use a wheelchair, you’ll tour here and never return.
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That is indeed a lot of stairs. Berkeley was always known for how far a student had to travel during a 10-minute break, especially in the East Asian Department. Because the department didn’t have its own designated building, we sometimes had to run across campus just to make it to the next lecture hall in time. And I mean full tilt running. Berkeley was also hilly, but we definitely didn’t have to deal with THAT many stairs! Sounds like your glutes are getting a good workout. :P
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That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to go to a large university! Our breaks are also ten minutes, and some routes between buildings do take the full ten while walking, but most don’t.
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Oh jeez, that is a lot of stairs, and especially in crutches! you poor thing! We have a lot of stairs out here too, Hong Kong is incredibly hilly so I’m forever going up and downhill. In the summer heat it gets seriously sweaty!
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Yes the summers are brutal! I feel your pain.
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wow. so you must either have really great legs or really sore knees?
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Probably both!
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My school is on a hill… most of the campus is pretty level, but the sidewalk around it is a big circle tilted on its side! (The interior is also a historical area where they can’t update the cobblestones… Very pretty, but it’s murder even in normal shoes, I don’t know how crutches could manage it.)
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The hills can definitely be brutal, and cobblestones would be even worse on crutches!
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