<p>ksarmand - there will almost certainly be an iron/ironing board available in some dorm space - probably the laundry rooms, maybe some other space. If there isn’t, you can go buy both locally. And, consider the logistics of getting an ironing board to college. It’s expensive to ship. You certainly aren’t taking it with you on a plane. It will be hard to fit into a car.</p>
<p>Gotta second the books. I brought a ton of books, and read maybe 5 that I had on that shelf the whole year, and it was just late-night, I’m bored reading anyway. This year I’ll be bring none of them. If I’m that desperate to read them, the library is a half-mile away.</p>
<p>Don’t bring too many pictures/posters/things to put up on your walls. At first, I didn’t think I’d brought enough–the walls in my room looked pretty bare. But as the year went on, all of that empty space filled up with concert flyers, new pictures, cards from friends at home, and wacky stuff people left in my mailbox. It became a huge collage of my freshman year, and I had a lot of fun taking it down (after I’d taken a picture, of course).</p>
<p>If you can afford it, and really like to read, consider a Kindle. It takes up no space and holds a ton of books. You might be able to use it for some required reading of classics - there is a way to take notes and such, although I find that awkward at best.</p>
<p>My daughter is a clothes horse - no matter where we go and for how long, she always has the biggest, heaviest suitcase of us all! We did the “only take 2/3 of what you think you need” and she still blew away every other freshman girl with her quantity of clothes. She also wore almost all of it!</p>
<p>I tried to tell her not to bring clothes that need to be dry cleaned or hand washed. She didn’t listen but didn’t mind bringing her clothes to a local dry cleaners and figured out a way to hang all her handwashables throughout her dorm room.</p>
<p>This year she’s moving into an apartment off campus that is unfurnished(?!) and we just bought her a bed that’s basically a mattress on top of 8 drawers plus a 5 drawer dresser. This is easily 3 times the amount of clothing space as her dorm room and we’re not even including the clothes closet in her room plus the coat closet in the entrance. </p>
<p>Oh, she didn’t use the hot chocolate maker last year so I think she’s leaving that home. Bless you UPS!</p>
<p>Grenade launchers tend to be frowned upon in my experience.</p>
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<p>You’re probably right, nemom. I might just pick up a tabletop ironing board once I get to campus; there’s a Target not too far away. However, I did check the website, and it appears that no irons/ironing boards are available. :(</p>
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<p>I iron everything. Including bedsheets and (most) undergarments.</p>
<p>When it comes to certain things, I can be obsessive.</p>
<p>I definitely suggest bringing a mini iron board and an iron. I used it a lot. Why would you want to wear a wrinkled dress shirt?</p>
<p>ksarmand - the website might not mention things like this, just as it probably won’t list the exact set of equipment in dorm kitchens. Depending , also , on the set up of your dorm, you might coordinate with others. So, if you have a four roommate suite - you all might want to jointly get an iron/ironing board, and there might be room for a fullsized board. Or if there is a laundry room for each floor or so, you might get one and put it there. Other people would probably use it but I doubt anybody would steal it.
(Grins…I’m now imagining the campus police report - “BE on the lookout for a student carrying an ironing board!, Armed and believed to be unwrinkled!”
Also, irons do pull a fair bit of power so be sure your room isn’t already overburdened. (I imagine this is less of a problem than in the past when dorm rooms rarely had much power pulling gear in them.)</p>
<p>I disagree about the books. I am an avid reader and found that I needed to bring up a ton to keep myself up to date. Space was definitely an issue but now I’ve gotten myself a nook, so it shouldn’t be as bad of a problem as it was last year. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t bring a ton of office supplies. I only used a bit of mine last year.</p>
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<p>You’d be really, really surprised. At the first school I went to, my roommate bought some really inexpensive kitchen stuff (like from garage sales and the dollar store) and kept it in the kitchen for everyone to use. That didn’t last very long because a good amount of it ended up stolen. It was nothing expensive or stuff that people particularly needed, but they stole it because they could.</p>
<p>-Books to read in spare time, because that generally doesn’t happen much in college. If you think you may read, pack a couple books and see if you finish them. if you end up reading a lot on your own, then have your parents mail you the rest of the books or whatever or bring them back after break.</p>
<p>-TV. TVs generally go unused more often than not in college, so maybe see if you really want one first before hauling one out.</p>
<p>About the piano, I plan on bringing an electric piano, and I was thinking 88 keys. I ended up freshman year playing almost an hour a day, but now I’d like to play without disturbing people. Should I just not bring one, or downsize, or what?</p>
<p>I disagree with the TV thing. Having a TV is nice.</p>
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<p>If it has a headphone jack, just take advantage of that and you can play all you want. If it doesnt have a jack though and you’re still in the dorms, don’t bother.</p>
<p>^yeah the main point is that it’d have a headphone jack, so I could play in my room and not disturb other people (because I’m not a world-beater, and even if I were people are still trying to study. I’m in a small house next year so you can probably hear the grand piano they have throughout).</p>
<p>I’m in a pickle. ;___;</p>
<p>I went through the A-Z list along with another site’s list of what to bring, and purchased items I didn’t have at home (or had to buy another, because those certain items needed to remain at home for family lol). Now, I feel as though I have… too much. I’m afraid of the risk of having something stolen or even lost.</p>
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<li>For school supplies: i.e. computer print paper, lined paper, pens, etc – would you guys advise stacking up or just buy from a nearby store as you go? Summer sales for school = cheaper so that’s why I bought a lot.</li>
<li>PURSES, CELLPHONES, IPODS!– What do you guys do? Carry them with you at all times? Or lock them up somehow? </li>
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<p>Someone earlier in this thread advised NOT to bring a safe. Why not? o: I’d rather have purses, cell phone charger, and other small items to be in a safe than to leave it in my dorm (much less, the opposite: carrying all those items with me everywhere @.@)</p>
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<p>Don’t bring any collections or anything valuable (sentimentally or monetarily). My friend wanted to bring her collection of Disney Collectible Musicals to college. I made sure I talked her out of it, as they cost a lot and mean a lot to her.</p>
<p>My daughter’s freshman roommate brought 50 pairs of shoes! She arrived first on move in day and took the larger closet. She even brought several shoe racks to keep them all organized. That really surprised us as my daughter brought only 5 pairs!</p>
<p>^^I brought my DVD collection (120 or so), but then again there’s almost zero room thefts at my school, and we were generally good about locking the doors. Sentimentally that didn’t mean too much though.</p>
<p>I also had 400 dollars cash at some point hidden in my room. My laptop was rarely locked. My iPod and even a car key were in my top desk drawer, and my golf clubs were in the closet. Maybe it seems careless, and the car key probably was in retrospect, but then again there were almost no thefts at my school. </p>
<p>But cash should definitely be hidden, even if your school is really safe. Stealing three twenties from a stack of forty-seven is extremely easy and almost undetectable unless the person previously counted. That is something a roommate might steal, for instance.</p>
<p>I remember I brought way too much furniture, like shelving and chairs. somehow I pictured my room as being an empty box that I needed to fill, even though I had spent a week or more at a few different schools in the past and should have known better. also, don’t bring a rug unless you know that your room will not have one AND you really feel it’s important for you to have one. sort out WAY fewer books than you want to bring and then don’t bring all of those either.</p>