10 Steps to do before going away to college

The time between high school graduation and the day you leave for college may seem like a long period, but it is not! It is so short in fact that no sooner will you have packed away your cap and gown and yearbook, will you be packing your car and heading out for the "last night home." A million things will change in that period, but it is as they say the best and worst summer of your life. 

This 10 step checklist is a bunch of things you will probably forget to do in this short period of time. It ranges from ways to make your home away from home, or that 2 x 4 they call a dorm room, homey to how to save your parents money on phone calls. 

All in all these are valuable tips and tricks of the going away to college trade, so enjoy!

Okay so you may not think this is so important, but it is. Your dorm room is where you will be living- and so it needs to be as home-y as possible. Of course that is often quite hard to do when you have a 2 x 4 living space, but this 10 step article is going to show you exactly how to do that. First you need to learn where to shop and what to shop for. Then you need to be realistic about what your dorm can look like. Then you also need to remember to bring a lot of things that without reading this you would have forgotten, and also a little advice for helping your parents deal with the whole process. 

1. Bed Bath and Beyond

This can be your best resource, or it can be your worst. The checklist is filled with items that seem like something a first time college student would need, and yet many of these items move from your hometown, to your college dorm and back again. For example flannel sheets. Not everyone likes flannel sheets and to be perfectly honest unless you are going to school in Alaska you will most definitely not be cold in your dorm room. The things that should be on this list are:

a) two window fans- these will come in handy after you have moved in, and they will definitely be sold out in the school store in the first five minutes of move-in day. 

b) lofted bed shelf- particularly if you have a lofted bed, as many freshman at Quinnipiac University do, this will come in handy. You can put yet another fan on this and also a drink, glasses, and you know those textbooks you are supposed to be reading. 

2. Pottery Barn

Now according to Pottery Barn, this is how big a dorm room generally is. In any of your college visits did you see a full size bed in a dorm room? I didn't think so. 

 

Regardless, Pottery Barn Teen is a good resource as well. Organization is key in creating a comfortable dorm room and Pottery Barn has a lot of interesting options for organization. 

a) Curtains: These can mean the difference between making lifelong friends and lifelong enemies in the first few months away. College is an adjustment period, which also means you have to adjust to other people's habits. Everyone adjusts at different rates, so one of your roommates may not realize until the middle of the semester that it is rude to keep her desk light on until 3 a.m. These may help with the limited space, at least slightly. Hanging them around a desk area may give you the quiet you need to study and can also signify to your roommates that you are indeed studying and do not want to be bothered, no matter what. 

b) Locker Bins: These are an easy way to organize your books, extra paper, shower accessories and other small items that would otherwise take up too much space in your closet and/or your desk. Your desk should be as clutter free as possible to allow for a good study environment. This may sound ridiculous but you definitely will be happy when you can study in your room instead of braving the 20 degree weather to go to the library during finals in December. 

 

And now while your dorm may never look like the above picture or this:  it can definitely be comfortable for you!

3. Staples

Now Quinnipiac students have it quite easy- they have a staples within 10 minutes of campus. If you do not have one as close, it is important to remember to purchase the necessary supplies before hand. This does not only include notebooks and looseleaf pages, but it also includes pens, staples, a stapler, post-its, and batteries. It is also good to ensure that you have extra quantities of all these "office" supplies as you most likely will not have a car freshman year and ultimately will not be able to get off campus so easily. You also will need a chair or at least a cushion as many college chairs are quite uncomfortable. 

Directions to Staples from Quinnipiac University: 

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4. Communication

Although this is not a store, it is vital to your pre-college prep. How will you communicate with friends and family members while away? In the digital age, most people have cell phones, and facebook is also a great resource for keeping in touch with high school friends. Depending on how far away from home you are and your wireless service provider, these calls can be quite costly. A low-cost option, particularly for that semester you will hopefully spend abroad, is skype. Skype is a VOIP service- which stands for Voice Over Internet Provider- it is similar to vonage in that it carries phone calls through an internet connection for a minimal fee. Skype costs two cents per minute calling to anywhere in the world, but if you call from a computer it is free! The new Dell laptops, required by QU, and all Mac laptops, have a camera installed in the screen. All you need to do is purchase one for a home computer and viola! you can communicate with your family and family pets, for free. Depending on the quality of the webcam it can be quite expensive or inexpensive. You can also purchase one on ebay. This will ultimately score you major points with your parents because not only are you saving them money (which they will be grateful for after the six digit tuition bill they will receive after July 1st) you will also be teaching them something technical that they can brag about to their friends, because you know parents love that stuff!

5. Meal Plan

Again more a concept and thought process. How much food do you eat in a week? Do you want to have extra money on your meal plan for coffee or do you want to eat the two meals a day, six day a week plan that some schools suggest? If you choose to simply do the two meals a day another important thing to consider is how you will supplement your meals. Will you go food shopping or use peapod? One of the best things about peapod is that they deliver food from stop and shop straight to your dorm and your parents can order the food for you from home (which means they can also pay for it!)

6. Spending Money- Otherwise known as a Job

While adjusting to college many students find it quite difficult to keep up with class work and also a side job. An option for this is work study. Be sure to apply for this in APRIL when you submit your FAFSA. (Federal Application for Free Student Aid) Work study allows you to be granted a specific amount of money to be paid to you by the University you attend in exchange for work. So you can work at the Library, Admissions office, Bobcat Den, Polling Institute, and a variety of other places depending where you attend. 

7. Mac or PC- Which is better?

Ah the age old dilemma- which is better? Well according to Justin Long (and the Wall Street Journal) a Mac definitely has the upper hand, but here's a few easy ways to compare. 

If you are attending Quinnipiac in particular it might be easier for you to have a Dell, the school sponsored computer. The STARs will take care of any and all problems that you may have.  The Quinnipiac Dell can be viewed here.

If you do decide to get a Mac, you will be forced to go to West Farms Mall for any and all service problems. The West Farms Mall is about 45 minutes by car. This may be difficult if you are a freshman this will be quite difficult. 

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8. Clothes- Do not over pack!

When you first go away it will be hot, so you will want summer clothes. If you do not plan to go home until Thanksgiving break, then you may need to bring a warmer set of clothes. The important thing is to not bring too many winter clothes as it will be a lot easier to simply switch out your clothes during your breaks. Another important thing to remember is to bring a lot of clothes you like. For example if you plan to be going out a lot (and you will in the first few months) then you will need a few dresses, dress shirts (for boys) and whatever else you like to wear to go out. 

9. Facebook

Setting up a facebook is definitely a vital part of college prep. You need to determine which networks you will be joining (generally your college and your hometown), and it is a great way to communicate with roommates beforehand. This way you can meet them and coordinate who will bring the microwave, fridge and tv. It also helps you to stay in touch with people from your orientation group, which also means you will have a built in group of friends waiting for your arrival!

10. The Last Night

The last night home can be one in which you are quite torn. Your parents will want you to have dinner with them, your friends will want you to have drinks with them and your significant other (should you have one) will definitely want some quality time. How do you balance all this? There is no right or wrong answer, the best answer is simply to see who, when and where, makes you happy. It's YOUR last night, and things will honestly never really be the same again, so embrace it and be ready for the most amazing four years of your life--the four years where you learn what living truly is. 

  

CNN's Report on GPS Tech in Cell Phones

CNN this morning reported on a new mobile service that will find you using your GPS and then will allow advertisers to send you coupons or promotions via text message.

I think this, especially for 20 somethings, is going to be a really cool product! Imagine being able to go food shopping and have coupons texted to you! Not only will it save paper and time (because you won't be cutting coupons) but I feel it will also teach college students how to budget and save.

Although the issue of privacy violations may come up in the future, right now I feel as though this is quite an interesting concept that will ultimately help us.

Students take a stand against hate

I recently wrote an article for The Quad News regarding the subject of hate. And although parts of this post may seem like a plug for my own article (and okay they are) the true meaning of this post is to make people aware of the problems at Quinnipiac as of late and also how we, as students, can change the world. That's right I said it- change the world, and even if we can't change the whole world, because let's face it the world is pretty screwed up right now, at least we can change our Quinnipiac world, our Quinnipiac home.

Hate is something that no one expects to encounter in their first year, or even in their four years at college, and it certainly was not something I expected to see my first year either, but it's there. It's present everywhere and the sooner people start talking about it, the better, because as the saying goes, Apathy is almost as bad as the act itself, or something to that effect.

Coming from New York City I have seen all kinds of people, and having traveled to nine different countries I have really seen ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE, but the one thing that never really struck me-as a child or now as an adult-was that I should discriminate against these various people because of their skin color, their hair color, their nationality or anything. I merely marveled at these differences and, as a journalist, asked them as many questions as I could to understand their point of view, their story. I feel everyone has a story and that every story deserves to be told and this story- the one which I have been spending days writing about and am publicizing on every website I know of- Twitter, Facebook, my blog etc- is about how students can change the world.

Students can change their college communities and we need to learn how to do this now, otherwise the world is going to be a lot more screwed up- regardless of our financial situation.

New Era

As I was reading the NYTimes today, I was startled (as all journalists should be) to see a picture of the flag draped coffins of soldiers on a plane returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. It is terribly sad that all these young men and women are dying for something that, in my opinion, is a waste of time, but as a journalist I feel a change coming upon us. Journalists were banned from taking pictures of coffins since the Bush-1 presidency, although regulations became a lot more strict during Bush -2, but now we are free to do what it is our duty to do as journalists- tell the whole story- the good, the bad and the ugly.

The times, as the saying goes, they are a changing :) finally

Stupid research to be doing during a recession

As I was reading the Wall Street Journal in the Student Center today, I realized why I generally do not read the WSJ- because some of their news is stupid. Who needs the Daily Show/Colbert Report for stupid (although quite entertaining news and labeled as a comedy) news when the WSJ is printing news about possible taxation OF SHEEP BURBS! That's right, a farm in New Zealand is measuring the amount of methane that sheep emit when they "belch" as the classy WSJ put it, and as I continued to read this article (the reason why I continued to read this escapes me) it says that since methane gas is the most devastating of the greenhouse gases, governments may begin to tax bovine burps!! AND YES I AM 100% serious. Read the article, and then tell me it's more important than (or on the same level as because this wonderful story was ON THE FRONT PAGE) the economic crisis, or the fact that the stock market is currently up, which I think is HIGHLY important, and frankly don't care about sheep, burbing or otherwise.

Jeez what has the world come to? What are we going to tax next- the whistling puppy?