At Orientation last week, a good question popped up during our last session with Student Orientation Leaders – “what item did you not think to bring ahead of time?” (to the dorms, of course) There were some good answers…one said, “a deck of cards”. Another said, “an umbrella, and carry it all the time”. Another very good answer was “business casual clothing” (for the various functions where they wished to dress a little better than usual).
So how about it? For dorm dwellers and parents…anything you wish you would have brought, or maybe needed to buy right away?
Two things. I’d shy away from those all-inclusive dorm bedding package deals because it’s sight-unseen. What we did was visit a local, to us that is, Bed, Bath & Beyond. There you get to pick out any and all things you think you might need, and they ship it to Cincinnati for you and have it ready to pick up when you get there. That way, you can see, feel, and touch everything closeup before you put any money down, and your trip out to cincy is a bit easier on the shock absorbers. Once you get to the dorm, you can lug up anything you brought, and then head out to the local BB&B to pickup whatever else you ordered.
Secondly, you will forget things, so Amazon Prime is your friend. Two day free shipping for anything forgotten. My daughter is in DAAP Interior Design. She needed to purchase her own studio chair for use at DAAP. It was delivered directly to the dorm, and a notice was put in her mailbox to come down to pick it up. That works very well.
Also, MOM (Market on Main) is your friend. Asprin, cold medicine, umberellas etc.
Here’s the clincher, however. All that stuff you brought from home, all the stuff you picked up from BB&B, and that DAAP studio chair need to come home with you for the summer, or you can get storage locally, but everything has to leave DAAP and the dorm come May. Good luck. I hope that helped.
remember that the beds in some of the dorms are XL twin beds so when you buy your bedding buy extra long. we gave our daughter a credit card so what ever she needed to purchase for Industrial Design DAAP.
One other thing we learned… since we live out of state… reading days means no classes which means lots of people go home. if we knew that ahead of time we would have bought a plane ticket for her to come home for an long weekend.
another thing…bring a few nice outfits like balthezar said…our daughter was invited to join and be inducted into 2 honor societies and needed nicer outfits…plus she took an introduction to speech class and had to dress up for all her speeches.