When it comes to parking at TCU, the problem isn’t a lack of spots – it’s all about location.

There are 9,714 parking spaces on campus, with about 7,460 parking permits that have been issued, said DeAnn Jones, coordinator of parking and transportation services. But parking spots are not always where students want them. Some students adopt a “fend for yourself” mindset when it comes to parking that can have mixed results. Here are some of their stories.

Meighan Dolan, junior strategic communication major: 

“I was late so I parked behind Beasley in the teacher/faculty lot. I got out of class and I had two tickets on my car, written by the same cop, one right after the other. Which is pretty ridiculous in my opinion, but whatever, I clearly deserved it. I pulled through because the spot in front of me was open, went to turn right, cut too close to the curb and hit a rock that was sitting at the end of the divider with the side of my car. I didn’t even get out and look at it, I just accepted my terrible karma and drove to Central Market to hopefully lighten my spirits, and on the way I got rear ended at a red light by a truck with a grate on the front. He put a hole in my bumper and my trunk won’t close all the way.”

Erika Simonson, TCU alumna:

“Most of my tickets came from parking in visitor lots, like the lot outside of Clark and Tom Brown or the faculty lot located outside of Moudy. I lived in Tom Brown and had most classes in Scharbauer or Moudy, so if I needed to run in and grab something I left in my room or turn something into a professor and there was no parking in the close student lots, I would park there and run inside. Of course, totally my fault, but sometimes I would be inside for just a couple minutes and come back to a ticket. I would justify the ticket by saying I was in a real time crunch, and usually wouldn’t realize how much my fines were adding up because they were billed to my student account. But, boy, did they add up, and my parents were less than pleased.”

Ty Ledesma, senior Film, Television and Digital Media student:

“I commute from Keller, which means I have a good 16-mile drive there and back every day. Sometimes I leave my house three hours before my first class so I can patrol for a parking spot. There have been multiple times where I have arrived and started to look for a spot only to be circling around aimlessly with two minutes to spare before class. Those times where you spend an actual two hours in your car doing circles, not finding a spot, and being 20ish minutes late for class, I just say ‘screw it’ for that day and leave. Parking at TCU is atrocious. I’ve had better parking experiences at colleges with a larger student body. It doesn’t help that you have one decent sized lot far away from anywhere on campus. Another thing, whenever they rope off half the lot for some special function, you are almost guaranteed to have to park a mile away.”

Betsy Lauritzen, TCU alumna: 

“Basically it was [around] 9 a.m. the week of finals [my senior year] in December…There was a bulldozer in the Moudy lot, and parking over there is a mess anyways. I even arrived like 15 minutes early to scout people leaving but obviously, no one left….so I had no choice but to park behind the bulldozer, which no one was in and [there were] no construction workers around! I turned in my paper, sat for 10 minutes while the teacher talked, then ran out and I had a ticket and a ton of construction workers around my car… and it was the week of graduation so if you got a ticket you don’t get to graduate. So I had to go beg for my life, and by the time I got there everyone at police department knew who I was -the girl who parked behind a bulldozer – they waived the ticket and I graduated!”

 Ashley Dalton, senior FTDM and communications student: 

“I was trying to find a spot for 30 minutes, finally found one, put my blinker on and as the car pulled out someone stole my spot, who just happened to be a professor…then he looked at me, laughed and walked away. Still bitter. It changes people, for the worse. Also, I bought a TCU soccer sticker so I could park in the soccer/baseball lot for recruitment and not get a ticket or have to leave an hour early just in hopes of getting there on time because of parking.”

Maggie Grzeskowiak, senior graphic design major:

“Last year in late April or early May, I parked my car in front of a house by that curve in the road behind Moudy. There were trash cans on the road, and I moved one of the trash cans over so it was next to the other so my car could fit. They were still on the street – I just moved one [around] six inches – and when I came out my car was completely covered in syrup, it was crazy! When I originally parked there, the lady [in the house] was looking out the window too, but it was a totally legal place to park”.

Good luck out there parking Frogs!