Originally Posted by
pianoboy3333
My commute to class would be a mile to a mile and a half at most. The area is pretty "hilly" so there's a decent amount of uphill and downhill. In terms of exercise, I'd probably only be doing a couple miles at a time, at most 30 min.
IMO, as someone who's in a vaguely similar position (grad student), the best thing you can do is to find a nice, solid old bike and bring it to a local shop to replace and tune all the necessary bits. You can usually find an old frame for cheap, and basic part restoration is also pretty good.
Also, a lot of colleges will have a bike co-op, which is usually a great place to find refurbished bikes.
http://www.quadbikes.org/ is where I go, for example.
I say all this because anything that looks new on a college campus is going to be a target for theft, and few colleges provide indoor bike storage.
Good luck!