I'm a high school senior who commutes an hour by train to school every day. It's helped prepare me for the real world.

• Four years ago, I started commuting to my high school — which is an hour away — by train.
• Sometimes the commute got difficult, especially when trains were delayed or canceled.

I hadn't thought about how cushy life was in grade school when my father drove me 10 minutes to school every morning.

But that ended when I started high school at The Hudson School, which is 25 miles away from my home in Madison, New Jersey.

Unlike the schools around me, The Hudson School offers an urban campus and an extremely small class size — only 26 people in my grade. When I learned it also offers courses not found in a traditional high school curriculum, such as Ancient Greek and military history, I knew it was right for me.

But with it being so far from my home, I have to travel every day to and from school via New Jersey Transit. It takes me a little under an hour to get to school and up to 75 minutes to get home.

Now that I'm a high school senior, I look back fondly on my four-year commute. I learned a lot on those trains — but not all of it was great.

When I first started commuting to school, it was nerve-racking

I thought I knew what I was getting myself into on that first day of freshman year — but after waking up at 6 a.m. and planning to make a 6:45 train, I realized that I would have to make some changes. I started to adjust my routine: I packed my backpack the night before so it was ready to go in the morning, and I ate my breakfast on the train.

Right off the bat, my parents were concerned about me getting on and getting off the train in the dark — not to mention the discomfort of being surrounded by strangers every time I rode the train because this was the fall of 2020, and COVID was still very much a concern.

Meanwhile, I realized I was on my own for the first time. I had to make sure to have my tickets ready and deal with difficult conductors. In the beginning, I was nervous.

But I quickly got into the swing of things that first year and learned to enjoy my commute. Four years later, those commute jitters are long gone.

I learned real-life experiences from a young age

It didn't take long before I developed a routine and became familiar with the ins and outs of navigating trains, and I found that I could even sit with some friends from school who also commuted.

At first, I felt I was wasting valuable time just sitting on the train, so I soon started using my time productively by completing my homework. Because of this, I have learned to work in almost any environment.

I also learned a whole new set of skills. I have to ensure I have my tickets ready every morning and that I am on the right track for my train — little things that I hadn't really had to worry about before.

Additionally, I had to think on my feet and learned how to handle the unexpected. I know which stations offer transfers, so if I missed my connection, I knew where I can catch a different train. I also have learned to read a timetable, which came in handy when I was in Europe last summer.

But commuting every day isn't always easy

Commuting did take a toll on my social life. Some of my classmates didn't live so far from the school, so they didn't have to worry about a long commute. They were able to stay in Hoboken and hang out. Whenever I joined them, I had to keep the train schedules in my mind. The longer I hung out, the later I would get home, cutting into my homework and study time.

Commuting by train also means inherent mechanical issues. There have been days when it has taken me hours to get to school. It can get exhausting and draining; there are some days when I wish I could just get home as quickly as my peers who live in Hoboken and not have to deal with mass transit.

Plus, there have been times when I needed to get to school on time — for a big project or test — and then my train would suddenly get canceled or experience a delay. On those days, I struggled the most and had to get creative. Sometimes, I had to rent a bike to finish the commute. Other times, I had to get to another station to catch a faster train.

I imagined how much easier it would be if I were a regular high school student who took the bus to school.

Still, I'm glad I got to commute 25 miles every day before heading off to college

Looking back at the past four years, I realize commuting has helped prepare me for the real world — outside high school.

Now that I am about to head off to college, I feel that these experiences have helped me learn lessons about time management and problem-solving that I might otherwise not have learned.

It may have been a struggle at times, but I know that it was all worth it for the education I got in the end.