<p>I'm going to be a freshman this fall and hopefully will being staying in Kinsolving. What things do I need to bring for my dorm room?</p>
<p>Find out if your roommate is bringing a t.v., shower curtain, etc. then go form there. (Chargers, laptop, cloths, alarm clock, cologne, toothbrush, towels, etc.)</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/82285-z-what-bring-college.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/82285-z-what-bring-college.html</a></p>
<p>Also notice what NOT to bring: [Division</a> of Housing and Food Service - What to Bring](<a href=“UHD Homepage | University Housing and Dining”>UHD Homepage | University Housing and Dining)</p>
<p>They’ll give you booklets at orientation that have a good clean cut list.</p>
<p>Mm… be ready to come back with a pound of papers. lol</p>
<p>You don’t need a shower curtain if your living in Kinsolving with the comm. bath. I’d highly recommend bringing a rug and a coffee maker :-P</p>
<p>zlc gave UT’s list of items and you will probably want to bring everything that’s under “What you may bring” especially a rug since kins has tile floors. Some other dorms have wooden floors. Other stuff not on the list that you might want to bring:
- a fan (highly recommended!)
- non-perishable food items like cereal, boxed/frozen dinners, etc. Grocery stores like HEB have more selection of bigger/cheaper items than convenient stores on campus or CVS
- bed risers. These help maximize the space under your bed especially if you have those big plastic storage bins
- I make a lot of smoothies so I brought a blender. Maybe that’s just me :)</p>
<p>oh, and a Swiffer wetjet. You’ll be tracking in a lot of dirt into your room from your shoes so every once in a while it’s good to sweep and then use the Swiffer to pick up whatever the broom didn’t get, especially under the rug. It’s a good investment I think.</p>
<p>Oh a swiffer sounds smart! I think I’ll get one of those. How do you go about alarm clocks and your roommate? And one thing I noticed that during orientation, my roommate would forget to lock the door a lot… should I just tell her? Ah! I’m just new to this. Always had my own room, so…hm… yeah</p>
<p>definitely bring some soap</p>
<p>Make sure you ALWAYS keep the door locked- Especially San Jac, Jester, Kinsolving the big dorms!</p>
<p>The beds are attached to the floor, so don’t bring bed risers. A rug is a good idea, and so is a fan. You’ll need a lamp and small shelf for your food and stuff. Kins doesn’t have much storage. The beds aren’t very comfortable, so get a mattress topper. The memory foam ones are awesome.
Get an ID holder that has a key chain attached. It’s really useful to have your ID and key together (you’ll bring them everywhere). Don’t bring so much food at the beginning. Once you get into a routine with the food, you can figure out how many snacks and non-campus food you’ll want. I’d recommend a Brita water filter.
If you’re planning on putting things on the wall, you should get some poster tape. Kins doesn’t have a big board on the wall like some of the other dorms.
A dry erase board is a good idea for taking down notes like to-do lists. And some post-its. I leave them on my desk and put reminders on them.
Bring a bike if you can. They’re really handy, especially when you have friends who live in the Jester area.</p>
<p>I second everything that was mentioned above. If you have a private bathroom (or connecting) bring a scented spray for obvious reasons… also, some kind of disinfectant like lysol will come in handy for when your roommate gets sick and you don’t want to catch anything by touching door handles and any other shared items. I never wiped anything down in front of my roommate in case she got offended or thought I was a super germaphobe, but I can also tell you that I never got sick this past year even though she was sick at least a few times. </p>
<p>Bring medicine… ALL kinds of medicine. I’m prone to headaches so I stocked up on tylenol. Bring cold medicine, tissues, and general things that you have at your home’s medicine cabinet. You don’t want to be sick and be forced to run out to CVS on a cold day. </p>
<p>Bring dry foods that you KNOW you like and don’t buy too much. For some reason I thought I would eat lots of canned soup and microwavables and everything pretty much went to waste because I found out that I hated canned soup.</p>
<p>About the alarm clock - I used my cell phone and set the alarm ringtone to low beeps - loud enough for me to hear, and not loud enough to disturb my roommate. Don’t worry too much about that though because even if she is disturbed, too bad! Setting your alarm and waking up for class is obviously going to happen whether your roommate likes it or not and she will get over it. I never had a problem with my roommate my freshman year but my roommate this past year would toss around in bed and sigh dramatically and it angered me. I had all morning classes, hers were all afternoon - no wonder. It was just as annoying for me to walk in at 3 p.m and she was still in bed and it was dark in the room because she turned the blinds. </p>
<p>Hope that helps</p>
<p>I second Brita water filter. Don’t forget floor/sink cleaning stuff. Don’t bring too much stuff. The rooms in Kinsolving are pretty small and the closets are tiny too. </p>
<p>As for with alarm clocks, I always have class before my roommate so my alarm goes off first. I just turn mine off really quick. Just don’t let your alarm go for 5 minutes straight or something… You can also set your alarm on your phone and make it vibrate your pillow.</p>
<p>Always lock the door. If your roommate doesn’t, tell her.</p>
<p>I lived in San Jac and my roommate and I always felt safe when our door was unlocked. We never locked it when we were sleeping. Nothing ever happened whenever our door was unlocked and we were both gone. Although we did try to remember to keep it locked when we were gone.</p>
<p>It was always quiet too. There were only a few times out of the whole year when we actually heard anything outside our room. I didn’t really become good friend with anyone from my floor either, but we did say hi whenever we passed by each other.</p>
<p>Ahh yes, a Brita water filter, mattress pad, and medicine, all mentioned above, very smart to have indeed!</p>
<p>Half of the top drawer in my dresser was purely medicine and the like. Tylenol, antihistamines, throat drops, cough drops, Visine, tussin, etc. And were they all needed? Oh yes. Very much so.</p>
<p>An extra Kleenex box, travel packs of Kleenex, and Clorox wipes. I wiped down all surfaces -top of the dresser, desk, printer, laptop, microwave, fridge, all handles like doorknobs, room key, phone, card- at least once a week. Oh, and hand sanitizer! Have a bottle in your room and a mini one for your backpack. I don’t do all this extra sanitizing stuff at home but it sure does help in college because you do NOT want to get sick. I was sick for a month late in the fall and it sucked.</p>
<p>I lived in a smaller back hallway of my dorm and we knew everyone in that hallway. We’d leave the door unlocked if at least one of us was in there or if we had to step out for a minute to go to the bathroom. If neither of us were around or when we were sleeping, we definitely locked it.</p>
<p>Some dorms have movable furniture so you can use bed risers which are great. Other dorms like Kins and some of Jester and Moore-Hill have both immovable and movable furniture depending on the room. Bring risers anyway and you’ll see if you can use them once you see your room. </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter too much about the alarm. Just try to make it loud enough so you can hear but not obnoxious to your roommate. And don’t slam the door or talk on the phone or play loud music while they’re asleep. Common courtesy stuff of course. But you both know an alarm is necessary so it’s understandable</p>
<p>“Half of the top drawer in my dresser was purely medicine and the like. Tylenol, antihistamines, throat drops, cough drops, Visine, tussin, etc. And were they all needed? Oh yes. Very much so.”</p>
<p>…really? You had all that? I didn’t even have Advil and I got through the year. Haha. [Although I did steal some from my roommate when I had a really bad hangover, but don’t tell him that, lol.]</p>
<p>I only locked my door when nobody was in the room or when we were sleeping. We forgot plenty of times though, and nothing ever got stolen. Just be careful how often you lock it: I never brought my keys with me when I went to take a shower, and my roommate locked me out three times over the course of the year. One time my RA was nearby to get the spare key from the front desk for me, but the other two times I had to run downstairs in my towel and ask for the spare key. Luckily I knew the people who worked the desk well, since I technically was supposed to have my ID card to get the spare key (a catch22, since I was locked out of my room!) So… don’t go overboard with locking your door, think about if your roommate has his key with him too.</p>
<p>Most theft is bicycles and people leaving stuff alone in the library/gym. Not dorm room theft, I never see that mentioned on the CampusWatch [a email newsletter that lists the previous day’s crimes. I highly recommend signing up for it, it’s really funny to read since the officers who write it make jokes about drunk people a lot].</p>