<p>Colorado_son will be starting his freshman year at NEU this fall. I expect that we'll get some tips for "sending his stuff" etc when we attend Orientation. But that won't be until late in July. In the meantime.... got any planning tips?</p>
<p>yeah I would like to know this too… I am coming from texas</p>
<p>Be prepared to bring very very little. Yes it’s a bit more expensive to buy your bed stuff at Bed Bath and Beyond, and yes target is kind of a pain in the butt to get to (although they have buses from school during the first week), but it’s cheaper than trying to ship everything. Also make sure you limit your clothing to only what you’ll need in the fall. Keep your heavy winter stuff at home (boxed up and ready to go) and ship them later, or bring them back with you in an extra suitcase when you come back from christmas, depending on how cold it gets in december.</p>
<p>You pretty much just need to follow the usual tips for moving into a new (and small) space, but follow them even more. When you look at your desk at home, someone driving from NH can bring their laptop, lamp, binders, spirals, fan, pens, books, etc. Someone flying in from far away probably shouldn’t need anything but their laptop, and can get the other stuff in Boston if it’s cheaper and easier than shipping or flying. </p>
<p>That being said, I highly advise bringing things from home that mean a lot to you. Since you’ll (well, your son) will be far away, it’ll be much harder to go home so the homesickness might be worse. I remember that I didn’t bring anything but two pictures and a book that were “personal” things from back home because I really wanted to save space-- and by Thanksgiving I was a total mess because they were the only things I had to remind myself of the friends and family I wasn’t able to see, meanwhile all my Boston friends got to go home every few weeks if they wanted to.</p>
<p>Oh, and this may be obvious but two of my friends from home that moved out of state as well forgot this: make sure you HAVE a suitcase. Someone coming from NH shouldn’t bring one because they just take up space, but if you have to fly home for breaks you need a good sturdy one that passes tsa regulations. You don’t want to accidentally ship everything in boxes and think you are being clever because you didn’t need to pack a suitcase, and then realize December 20th that you don’t have anything to put your stuff in for the break.</p>
<p>Bummer that airlines do fees for bags now… I came here back in the 2 free check-in bags days so my parents each carried an extra bag of my clothes/personal stuff that I needed from home, and then I just bought the big stuff here (target, bed bath & beyond). Shipping is pricey so I’ve only done it occasionally, but it’s kind of unavoidable.</p>
<p>Suitcases are also a must, even though they take up space… mine usually live under my bed and are stuffed with random clothes/extra stuff that I accumulate.</p>
<p>Also super important to force a mass resident to be your new best friend so that you can store your stuff in their house over the summer… you’ll accumulate way too much stuff to throw away/pack/ship, and storage units are expensive.</p>
<p>Thanks for the hints! I’ve begun to think that maybe getting the stuff there is the easy part. Emilly’s hints about having a friend for storage sounds good. (If needed there is an uncle in Cape Cod, but we’d would like to avoid begging that favor… he prefers not to drive into Boston).</p>
<p>Airline baggage #1 needs to be the tenor sax. Oh and I guess #2 is backpack and laptop. We’ll make sure there is a suitcase too.</p>
<p>Can you ship directly to the dorm?</p>
<p>When S started at NEU, back when you could still check 2 bags for free, there were 3 of us so we could each check bags with S’s belongings. We rented a car and tried to buy as much as possible once we got there so the only things we brought with were clothing and a few personal belongings (S also had a computer and sax); we shipped heavier winter clothing later in the yr (and his bike a week into the semester - out of the blue, S decided to join the bike team). </p>
<p>After we had a better sense of the room size and layout, we ran out to Target and picked up under the bed and other storage containers that we knew would fit in the room (we also left a few of the suitcases behind and he used them for some under the bed storage as well) along with some basic office/school supplies. </p>
<p>We also purchased bedding, towels, a fan (S’s orientation happened to be on the hottest day of the yr that summer so this was something he insisted on having since he would be in a traditional freshman dorm without AC), basically as much as possible in advance from the BBB close to our home and then just picked up our order at the BBB in Boston near the Fenway area.</p>
<p>S had also been in contact with his roommate during the summer and they jointly agreed to rent a microfridge (which of course made the room even more crowded; I think they put it in one of the closets). S actually moved in a day early so I never did see that room once it was filled with both students belongings but I know we probably went overboard and S really did not need as much as he had.</p>
<p>Because we knew absolutely nobody out east, we ended up using a storage company the first summer that came right to campus and picked up your stuff and then delivered it in the fall (not the cheapest option but we wanted some sort of plan; S has Aspergers so we really weren’t counting on him to come up with a plan for summer storage); although others have had bad experiences with this type of arrangement it worked out fine for us. The following yr was S and his roommates were able to store their things at the home of one of the roommates for the summer, and since he has been doing all his co-ops in the Boston area, summer storage has not been an issue since then.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Boston friends are pretty sweet. I’m stuck moving out of my dorm on august 25th, but my lease doesn’t start till the 1st-- so I shall be crashing (with all of my stuff) as friends’ places nearby.</p>
<p>I will hopefully be coming from Ireland so Im kinda screwed for bringing stuff. Just some clothes, laptop and butt load of cash (which I am yet to acquire)…</p>