<p>As you begin to think about all of those essentials (and luxuries) that will be making the trip with you to campus this fall, you may find inspiration from other students on what to bring...and what not to bring. Below is a pseudo-directory of "packing for college" threads all in one place:</p>
<p>In particular, I would recommend these threads that should help you decide if that bowling trophy from when you were 12 is a necessity for your dorm room:</p>
<p>Some dorms have suite-style bathrooms. Here, they have a cleaning service bi-weekly. If you clog the porcelain throne, unless you let it ferment for 2 weeks, you’ve got some plungin’ to do.</p>
<p>This is the list I go with, but it’s a bit simplified because I fly 2500+ miles for college (i.e. driving is not economically feasible, nor realistic):</p>
<p>Pack: anything I can’t buy easily at the destination, or anything that will fit into 1 large suitcase+1 rolling carryon (reduce to 1 rolling carryon for breaks). This will limit your packing to your clothes, laptop, iPod, electronics, musical instruments (if applicable), and a very short list of other miscellaneous things (i.e. pictures, favorite teddy bear, whatever).</p>
<p>Do NOT Pack: everything else. Much cheaper to buy, say, hangers or a laundry hamper at the destination than pay the excess baggage charges. And if you fly, remember this: there are only two types of baggage-carryon and lost/stolen.</p>
<p>Don’t bring a plunger. Those dorm toilets have the super hard flushs, so anything coming from a human body, and toilet paper are going in that toilet. Just don’t do anything stupid, like start throwing batteries into the toilet. Otherwise, you are unlikely to clog that.</p>
<p>My brother said some kid had the great idea of throwing his ipod into the toilet and clogging it…probably won’t happen to you but just sayin there’s a case for bringing a plunger</p>
<p>Our orientation speaker made a great rule of thumb: “if it doesn’t fit in the back of an SUV, don’t bring it.”</p>
<p>Meaning you don’t need to load up a U-haul with furniture for college. You’ll have nowhere to put it.</p>
<p>The way I made my list: Write down EVERYTHING you use during a typical day. This includes toiletries. That way you have a realistic view of stuff you’re actually going to use, stuff you might use, and stuff that will just sit there all year.</p>
<p>Also: bring some personal items to jazz up the dorm and make it feel like home. Wash your sheets with your home detergent so they smell like home. Bring a few pictures of friends. Don’t bring your HS yearbooks, as they’re priceless and will most likely get ruined unless you know you have a safe place to put them…they CAN be fun for others to look at and get a glimpse of what your high school life was like.</p>
<p>if you’re worried your bathroom at school might not have a plunger, then by all means bring one.</p>
<p>i shared the women’s bathroom with nine other females last semester. there were two toilets and one or the other clogged at least once a week. one once clogged, then somebody tried to flush it, and it overflowed, flooded the bathroom, spilled out into the hallway and soaked the carpeted floor. later than night, a drunken somebody threw up on the same area of the carpet. early the next morning, two frustrated cleaning personnel came to deal with the mess (they aren’t supposed to work weekends and this was a saturday morning), and after i listened to them yap for a good fifteen minutes (i lived directly across from the bathroom) about what BS this was and how the RA should’ve cleaned the mess up (sorry guyz, she doesn’t have industrial cleaning tools at her disposal), they apparently decided they were sick of their job and up and left. but they didn’t leave before they’d began to “clean” the mess, which amounted to actually pushing the clumps of vomit all over the floor, still soaking wet covered in toilet water and feces. no matter how many times hall members and the RA called/emailed maintenance, the housing office, and cleaning, no one came to fix it (i guess it was a task they just couldn’t stomach, but hey y’all, imagine how we felt living in grime). we couldn’t use the bathroom on our floor for over a week, not to mention the fact that we were forced to either walk on toilet water/vomit or go down a floor and come back up on the other side to reach a room on the hall across the large section of filthy carpet. both me and the girl across from me could not exit our rooms without stepping into the grossness. also, the hallway smelled FOUL.</p>
<p>moral of the story: this disgusting disaster could probably been avoided had the toilet-clogger just grabbed a plunger. make sure you have one.</p>
<p>Just curious - is there really a point in having a TV nowadays? It takes up a lot of space and flat screens are really expensive. Laptops can do what TVs can do since they play media online now, along with other applications. Plus they are cheaper and also serve academic purposes.</p>