With as many students as there are on the Sacramento State campus, one would assume there would be an appropriate number of parking spots.

Especially during the start of the semester, students are scrambling and circling the parking lots just to find a spot, not even where they would want to park in relation to their classes. Most students have to leave their homes exponentially earlier than they need to try and get there early enough so they don’t have to fight over a parking spot.

When the students are on the lookout for parking, it can get a little overwhelming at times. Not only are students trying to find parking but then they are getting anxious and worried about missing their class when they cannot find a spot in a timely manner.

For example, if you are a student with a class at 9 a.m. and you are trying to find a parking spot on campus at 8:30 a.m., the odds of you finding parking in time for class are slim to none. Once you do find a space, you still have to walk all of the way to your class after you wrestle your way into a spot.

What our campus needs is more parking structures or even just parking lots. It gives the students a little more reassurance of them being able to make it to school on time and not have to worry about being late to class. Even if we would add just one other parking lot, it could make a difference. In reality, even adding another hundred parking spaces would help; that’s a hundred less cars having to fight about a parking space.

Granted, parking structures are in the works for the coming years, but for current students, a parking structure in the future isn’t going to help them find parking now. Not to mention, most students do not want to have to go off campus and park their car, only to have to take a shuttle in to campus.

The Ramona lot is a nice option for off-campus parking at a discounted rate, but it is only open during certain hours, and it’s off campus, which puts most students off since they won’t be able to just stride across campus to grab their forgotten binder.

Some may think fighting over a parking space is never that serious. Think again. When a college student is just trying to make it to their class on time, and then someone out of no where just parks their car in their spot, disregarding a blinker that was on for two minutes, that can get pretty irritating. A scenario like this makes you want to yell out your window and show the person an obscene Italian hand gesture, and it sets a negative tone for the rest of your day.

If the university was able to expand their lots, it would make it so much easier on students and even on faculty. Just like the students need a parking space, so do our faculty. They don’t want to be scrambling at the last minute to find a space and then have to start their class late. All of us are entitled to the opportunity to drive onto campus and just be able to pull up to a parking space.

So when Sac State thinks of building more for the students, maybe we can think about putting in another parking lot. It’s great that we are trying to expand our beautiful campus, but if we could build another parking area for the students, it would be much appreciated.