<p>Daughter entering this fall. Should she and her roommate figure out who will bring a computer printer for their dorm room? Or should they just forget about it and print documents elsewhere on campus? If the latter, where besides the library can you print stuff? Is it convenient or a pain in the behind? Would appreciate any and all opinions. Thanks.</p>
<p>My D has never had a printer (going to be a junior in the fall) and although her roommate had a printer last year that she could use, she never did. They get 1000 pages B&W free (.25/page for color),with the ability to request more if they ever get close to the limit–which she never has. They can print from any of the library printers or any computer lab printers–probably about a dozen or so printers campus-wide–and some of them (in the Science Center, and maybe others) are available 24/7. Given the cost of toner, the space that a printer takes up in small dorm rooms and the ease of printing from the campus printers, she gives a definite “No!” to having a personal printer.</p>
<p>My D and her roommate split up buying large items and they did get a printer. They used theirs often. My D tends to stay up crazy late studying and I guess it’s much easier to print from your room at crazy hours - not sure what she was printing though - but it acted up at one point during the year and she was not too happy.</p>
<p>You don’t really need a printer. It’s a convenience but not a necessity. And many professors are now wanting the papers uploaded to an electronic dropbox anyway.</p>
<p>maidenMom: My D also stays up very late studying, but does it at the Science Center rather than in her room, so she could just print there 24/7. And I will second NJSue’s comment about uploading papers–my D said that she didn’t have any papers last year that were physically handed in. When I asked her what she did use the printers for, she said it was usually for printing out rough drafts of her papers to work with or for printing out class handouts/materials from links provided by professors. There were sometimes fairly voluminous and you would definitely NOT want to print them out on your on printer.</p>