Question about Shopping for college- Early

[debzkidz]

Definitely keep the clothes to a minimum. Closet space is going to be limited. When we were moving our son into his dorm his freshman year, we saw a girl and her dad arrive with a suburban and a car loaded with stuff, and an entire U-haul trailer with racks of her clothes! I don't know where she thought all that junk was going in her tiny little room.

[Mattie]

Dorm rooms are incredibly compact. It's much easier in rooms with beds that can be lofted up. The last dorm room we outfitted was 2 years ago. By raising the beds, we added a futon under one, and a tv, room fridge, microwave and coffee pot under the other.

Garbage cans, lamps, alarm clocks and hangers will always be in demand. Egg crate foam is cheap, I recommend using two, or getting a memory foam topper instead.

[abrokegal]

Dorm rooms are small, so take this chance to pare down and toss out old items that you won't really need. I'd probably go through all my clothes at this time, and make "keep," "donate," and "trash" piles. Wish I'd done this when I first entered college. Instead I brought entirely too many clothes.

You have to pay to do laundry, so you're better off having less clothing items. I always put it off and had 3-4 loads of laundry to do. Plus the dryers never worked right, and I ended up hanging partially dried clothes all over the room. So did my roommate, so our room was pretty messy on laundry days. So pare down your clothes. Closets are small. Don't bring too many shoes.

One set of sheets. I'd suggest just taking one from home if you have a twin-bed already. You probably won't need extra long sheets. I think that's a scam because the beds tend to be regular size twin. And even if your bed is longer, most sheet sets are made to be quite deep, so they will fit.

ABSOLUTELY invest in a foam mattress pad. My bed was terrible and gave me back pains. And bring good pillows.

ABSOLUTELY buy an eye mask and practice sleeping in earplugs now. It really cuts down on the noise. You'll be well-rested and chipper in the morning, and all your friends will complain about the loud hookup going on next door, or the obnoxious guys who make noise running down your hall. (They'll want to know your secret and why you're always more rested. )

I brought a lamp that was pretty dim so I could work on homework but not totally annoy my roommate. Typically I went to the campus library and studied (much better environment).

If you listen to a lot of music, or listen when you study and want outside noise blocked out, some headphones that wrap around your ears like this (Old School Monitor Stereo Headphones | OrignauxMoose Design and Print Blog) are awesome to have. And people nearby you won't hear the noise.

Good laptop. Lightweight though and with a long battery life. Best laptop I've had was an ASUS. It's 3 years old now, and the battery still runs for 8 hours unplugged and has never needed a replacement. It's also light and I've never needed maintenance on it. If you already have a laptop, take that of course.

Sturdy backpack. You probably have one already-just bring it.

I never brought a laundry bag. When I moved in I brought clothes already on the hangers (I drove) and in a laundry basket. The laundry basket fit on the floor in my closet, so that's what I used for laundry.

Don't bother with a mini-fridge. Your roommate might bring one. Just eat at your dining hall. Keep snacks in your room that don't need to be cold.

Don't bother with the microwave either. You'll be able to pop into neighbors rooms for it. Or you'll find you don't even need to microwave anything.

Bring 1-2 pictures to put on your desk. You might not actually be able to hang anything, so don't bring wall-stuff.

[Jazzii]

All the schools I've look at with the exception of 1 has free laundry!

Thanks for all of that though i appreciate it