At Quinnipiac, you cannot do anything without a Q-card. You can’t eat, enter your building, your room, print from the library or get back onto a shuttle after a long night in New Haven.

A couple weeks ago, I lost my Q-card and it took me six days to get a new one. Most people would immediately get a replacement as soon as they figured out they had lost it, but I waited because I was determined I was going to find my old one. I also did not have the $30 to buy a new one.

I knew the last place I had it was signing in to my work-study as Boomer the Bobcat. When I was done, I looked frantically but I could not find it. My first challenge was getting back into my residence hall. I waited outside for someone to walk out, and once inside my roommate was luckily in our room to let me in. I told him what happened and we made a deal to leave the door ajar until I got a new one.

Eating was fun. I became the biggest mooch by asking my friends to pay for my meals. The upside to my mooching was that I caught up on my meal plan. My luck continued: it was Admitted Students Weekend and I worked as Boomer. I knew I did not have a Q-card, so Boomer walked down the row of tables that were serving food and snagged some free bags with turkey wraps, chips and cookies. I did this for both Admitted Students Days. Also that weekend, Chartwells was giving student workers free meal tickets so I ate for another day. The only challenge was figuring out how Boomer was going to hold on to it all.

Spending late nights in the library was fun. I always entered before midnight so security did not have to ask for my ID. When I went back to Dana, I had to go to security to let me in to the building, but not my room – I was still leaving that open.

Coming back from off campus with friends was a task. I had to be kicked out of the car before we could go through the security booth at the New Road entrance.

Six days after I lost my Q-card, I finally had the money to buy a new one. But when I went to the Q-card office, both times I tried to attempt transferring money to my Q-Cash account, the transaction was marked fraud. The lady at the Q-card office who watched me struggle after 15 minutes finally decided to give me one for free.

At Quinnipiac you are not going to get anywhere without a Q-card unless you’re lucky or know the right people. I survived six days and I don’t know how much longer I could have lasted.