<p>So I am sure that the incoming freshmen are all starting to get ready and buy the necessary things for college (bedding, dorm room stuff, computer, other supplies), and probably have a few questions as to what works best for an MIT student or for a particular dorm or lifestyle. I hope you guys can use this forum as a place to get any of those questions out so us current students can help ya out.</p>
<p>Would you recommend bringing "decoration" stuff like rugs, floor lamps, butterfly chairs/beanbags, etc. or would that clutter up the room too much?</p>
<p>so when we go in our temp dorm, we jus throw all our luggage (everything) at a corner and wait till we get our permanent room? or do ppl jus put stuff in the storage room?</p>
<p>I was also wondering about the availability of ironing boards and irons as well as vacuum cleaners (specifically in Macgregor, but I'd love to hear about other dorms so I can mooch). Did anyone take any of these items with them? If so, did you use them? Also, do you recommend waiting until we get to campus to get notebooks and school supplies? (prices around here are significantly cheaper here than in Boston)</p>
<p>I always had a butterfly chair, which I liked for having friends come sit in my room and talk, but it wasn't necessary -- people who didn't have chairs just had friends sit on their beds. :) But a lot of people (at least in MacGregor) did have some sort of seat/futon in addition to their beds.</p>
<p>You'll probably just stick your stuff in a corner of your temp room until you move. This is why you should be sure to stick the stuff you need in another bag, or at the very least at the top of one of the boxes!</p>
<p>Vacuum cleaners are usually available in the dorm -- each entry in MacGregor has one available for resident use. Ironing boards and irons are something that you either bring yourself or mooch off a friend.</p>
<p>1) yes. bring rugs, lamps, beanbag chairs. this is where you will live. unless you're used to and especially inclined to life in a soulless cardboard box you'll want to make the room as homey as possible. chairs are good if you want friends to stop by. comfy chairs are good if you want them to stay.</p>
<p>2) yes. you do. you unpack as little as possible. it's like vacation, you live out of a suitcase for a week. it wasn't a hassle at all... people make too big of a deal about this whole temp housing situation.</p>
<p>3) umm... i dont iron. I think that whole thing would depend on your own hall and dorm though... if a hall wants a vacuum, it'll allocate funds for it (we have a SuckCom that takes care of that). iron is less likely to be available so you might want to invest in one. but probably don't bring a vacuum of your own... where would you put it?</p>
<p>about the bargain school supplies shopping: buy your books ahead of time. the coop is morbidly overpriced. i recommend half.com. i got all my books either there or off someone else on my hall and spent maybe 500 dollars total my first year. save yourself some money! BUT LET'S BE SERIOUS HERE. school supplies are nasty to pack and ship and lug around everywhere you go. buy them here AFTER you attend some classes and get a feel for what will or wont be necessary. for lecture-style classes i recommend notebooks. the price difference between whatever friendly neighborhood general store and the cambridge galleria are not enough to warrant the hassle. plus, that doesn't even make any sense... how much cheaper can a 1 subject college-ruled notebook be than 75 cents?</p>
<p>So most of everything has been covered so far. I'll just add my two cents about some of this. I would recommend some type of butterfly chair or something like that for people to sit on, but it depends on your dorm. Whenever I visited my friends in BC, they had chairs for us to sit on, but then again, I lived in Baker and the room came with a couch so it was not as necessary. We did, however, bring in another couch from the lounge and a few folding chairs to use when there were a lot of people in the room.</p>
<p>As for school supplies and textbooks...
I would say do not buy books before you get here. If you are adamant about buying books, I would get them off of an upperclassmen. Chances are you can get them for cheaper than you could even off half.com. Also, you will find that there are some classes that you will not need the book for or you will only need to look at every once in a while, making it easier just to borrow it from another freshman who bought it.</p>
<p>As for supplies, get them when you are here. No need to bring all of that stuff with you already. Whether you get binders or notebook is up to you, but I found that notebooks are so much easier. Easier to take notes during class on a small desk and it is easy to use the paper in it for p-sets. Just my preference.</p>
<p>Just to add a little to what Pebbles said: I don't want to live in a "souless cardboard box," and I imagine you don't either. But you don't necessarily have to drag all that kind of stuff with you to campus in the first place. (Especially if you're coming from far away and need to worry about shipping costs, etc.) My GRTs sponsored a couple of Target trips in the beginning of the year- they drove whoever wanted to go and needed to pick up bedding, kitchen supplies, etc. One day I got back to the room and we had a throw rug. My roommate apparently found one at Star Market (I wondered about this too, for the record- maybe it was some other store and I'm getting confused. But it was nearby). When we decided we wanted somewhere for visitors to sit, we bought a futon off of Craigslist.com. (And packed it into her boyfriend's miniCooper. Funny story.) And throughout the year, I just accumulated decorations- posters, Christmas lights, pictures. In January, when I was done with my 2005 LotR calendar, we cut it up and made it into a poster. We even covered one whole wall with funny out-of-contexts quotes on scratch paper.</p>
<p>The point is, I brought very few decoration-type things to campus with me, but in the end, I think my room looked pretty cool anyway: <a href="http://laura.mitblogs.com/archives/2006/02/and_for_my_next.html%5B/url%5D">http://laura.mitblogs.com/archives/2006/02/and_for_my_next.html</a></p>
<p>ok, but I keep my books.</p>
<p>Where is the best place in the area to purchase boots for the winter?</p>
<p>One option: there's an REI right at the Fenway T-stop, I took my kid there last year during Parents Weekend in Oct. and suited him up.</p>
<p>i didn't have boots for winter.</p>
<p>Yeah, I just have boots for going skiing -- you don't really need them on campus, since it gets shoveled pretty quickly after a snowfall. Plus there's always the Tech</a> Shuttle for those of us who live too far west on campus for our own good.</p>
<p>But there's that REI that mootmom is talking about, plus an EMS near the Pru, which should do the job just fine.</p>
<p>I'm coming from the west coast, and my parents were planning on waiting for me to get my permanent room assignment, and then shipping all my stuff to my perm room (they wanted me to just bring a couple bags while I'm temped). Is this a good idea? Or would it be better to have everything shipped at once (to the temp), and then just lug it all to my new assignment?</p>
<p>-Jared</p>
<p>good idea.</p>
<p>That's exactly what we did last year, sadoian.</p>
<p>LauraN, my son bought a decent-sized rug at Star Market (about $10 I believe). It's actually a nice color and was quite a bargain. He's used it for 2 years and it's still in good shape. </p>
<p>From fellow MIT'ers he's gotten a mini-refrigerator (the freezer doesn't work), a sofa (works as a bed for visitors) and a window air conditioner - all free.</p>
<p>Yes, good point: could someone who's a current student say something more intelligent about the re-use list than I could? Most of these items showed up in my son's room, too (along with a couple printers that might work someday if he fixes them, and an electric typewriter, and a comfy chair, and and and...), and from what I hear they were all free off the re-use list.</p>
<p>re-use is good. </p>
<p>good spam.</p>
<p>Ah, how could I have forgotten about reuse?!</p>
<p>Reuse is basically the greatest email list ever. Sign yourself up and you will get more emails than you ever wanted, but every once inawhile you'll stumble across something cool. Basically, whenever someone on campus is throwing something out, cleaning out their room/lab/whatever, they send an email to reuse. Basically, reuse works on the concept of "one man's trash is another man's treasure." The email message usually describes what's being thrown away and how you can claim it (usually by being quick with the reply button or to get to wherever it is on campus that the person left the items). You can get books, clothes, furniture, three billion computer parts, etc etc through reuse. I'm not joking, you can get the coolest free stuff. Sign up for reuse. Do it now. (<a href="http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/reuse%5B/url%5D">http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/reuse</a>)</p>
<p>Greatest reuse email ever:</p>
<p>"Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 10:32:55 -0400
To: <a href="mailto:reuse@mit.edu">reuse@mit.edu</a>
Subject: [Reuse] Centuries old cannon</p>
<p>One CalTech cannon. Discarded in front of the green building.</p>
<p>Take and post."</p>