Is there anything more daunting than packing for college? Sure, your school’s housing website has a handy (yet short) list of essentials—mattress cover, laundry bag, shower caddy, etc.—but what about all that other stuff in your room right now? When you’re moving into a dorm for the first time (or even if it’s not the first time), it may be tempting to just bring EVERYTHING (our dads and their overstuffed vans can attest to that) because you never know what you’ll actually need, but trust us—when it comes to packing for a dorm, less is more.
While some TV shows and movies may have tricked you into believing that dorm rooms have endless space (we’re looking at you, Gossip Girl and Blair Waldorf’s ridiculous NYU dorm), they’re actually pretty small… make that really small. Not to mention you’re going to have to share that small space with a roommate and all her stuff. So how do you decide what is and isn’t necessary to bring for a year in a dorm? Obviously, check HC’s Pick It Or Skip It Guide so you know exactly which dorm room supplies to shove in that van, and what to leave with your ‘rents.
PICK IT!
Cute Sweats
There is a lot of “lounging” in college — whether it be in the actual dorm lounge or bonding with your new besties in your twin XL bed. You’ll want a cute pair of sweats, and what could be better than a set that shows off your school spirit? VS PINK’s Collegiate collection has awesome tees and sweats for a ton of schools. $36.50 (shirt); $54.50 (pant)
A Jacket That Goes With Everything
Limited closet space means a limited wardrobe… aka not every single blazer and bomber jacket you own. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still be stylish with your outerwear! Bring one cute jacket that will go with everything and you’ll be the envy of all the fashionistas on campus—and your hallmates, when your closet is the only one in the dorm that doesn’t resemble an episode of Hoarders. We love this Tommy Hilfiger Denim Jacket; can’t you just see yourself relaxing on the quad in this, surrounded by fallen leaves and snuggling with that hot lacrosse player from your chem class? Well, at least the jacket is a sure thing. $79.99
An All-Star Sweetener
Coffee is obviously a staple for collegiettes, but more than that is our favorite sweetners. Don’t risk having to settle for a generic sweetener at the library cafe and pack Stevia In The Raw. It’s made by the same company as Sugar In The Raw (those cute brown sugar packets with the chunky sugar inside)! But it’s even better than Sugar In The Raw because it’s a zero calorie sweetner (and all-natural, of course!). It differs from other zero-cal sweetners because it isn’t artificial — it’s made from the leaf of the stevia plant — way better!
An Ultra-Flattering, Ultra-Affordable Unfussy Going Out Dress
Frats and clubs and bars, oh my—we don’t have to tell you that the college going out scene is legendary. And since it’s full of hot college guys just waiting for you to flirt with them, you don’t want to show up wearing flip flops and your favorite university t-shirt. Make sure you bring a dress, like this Night On The Town Bodycon Dress from Forever 21, that will make you feel like the hottest girl in the room when you go out. $19.80
Breakfast Substitutes
If you think you’re going to make it to the dining hall for breakfast before your 9 a.m. class, think again. With all the late nights studying and bonding with your new besties, sacrificing 45 minutes of extra sleep in morning for some eggs and toast just doesn’t seem worth it. Fill your fridge with CalNATURALE Svelte — a delicious protein energy drink that acts as a perfect breakfast substitute to enjoy on your way to class. And it comes in four delicious flavors — French Vanilla, Chocolate (our fave!), Spiced Chai and Cappuccino. $17.95 for six.
Extra Plastic Shelves
Odds are you won’t have the sort of drawer space you had at home in your dorm room. Therefore you’ll need to bring some of your own. The Small Tint Stacking Drawers from The Container Store are great because they’re inexpensive, colorful, and stackable — so you can fit them best into your room. $8.99
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Lighting
Newsflash: You’ve got a lot of long nights ahead. While yes, some of those will be all fun, many will be by the light of your room, trying to keep your eyes open as you pore through an economics textbook. Know what you need? A lamp (trust us, it’s highly unlikely the light in your room will be enough). We love Target’s Torchier Floor Lamp with Task Light as you can light up the whole room, or just your desk. $19.99
White Board Calendar
The biggest nightmare in college is forgetting a deadline. Too many of us know what it’s like to get the time of your final wrong, or mix up which week your paper is due. You should definitely pick up a calendar book, but having a wall one in your room, like this Dry Erase Elegant Monthly Calendar from Bed Bath & Beyond will help you keep even better track of parties, papers and meetings. $24.99
Bed Raisers
In your dorm room, space is precious. Bed raisers, like the Adjustable Bed Risers from Dormify, will give you an extremely valuable extra boost under your bed. You can store winter clothes, shoes — whatever else you need under there! $19.99
Bath Wrap
We assume you know to bring towels, but we’re also recommending a bath wrap, like this Student Lounge Butterfly Bath Wrap from Kohls. It’s the perfect thing to have while walking from bedroom to bathroom, and drying your hair while your roommate parades who knows who through your room. $11.99
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Posters
You’re going to want to decorate your walls immediately upon entering your dorm room. Those white walls aren’t exactly inspiring! Her Campus’s Have Fun Stay Young poster is our current favorite! $10
Bonus Charger
Depending on how busy your schedule is and how big your campus is, you may often find yourself not going back to your dorm room all day long. Between emailing, texting, tweeting and adding all your new pals on Facebook, your iPhone just might not make it through the day. The ReVIVE Solar ReStore External Battery Pack will charge your phone without a regular plug! Perfection! $29.99
Shower Kit
Since we’re pretty sure you’re bound to forget something, we suggest this College Dorm Bathroom Essentials Shower and Bath Package from OCM. The awesome kit contains everything you need for the shower in college: shower shoes, shower tote, toothbrush caddy, water cup, soap dish and zippered carrier. $20
Feminine Products – Sponsored
Picture this: You’re visiting the school store to pick up some tampons when you run right into your crush from biology lab. Can you say awkward? Stock up on pads and tampons from U by Kotex before school to avoid this snafu (plus they come in fun bright colors)! Starting at $3.59
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Chegg Bookmarked
Make sure to check out Chegg as soon as you get your book list so you can see their amazing rental prices on textbooks. The website’s prices are unreal. Take Stern’s Introductory Plant Biology: You could buy it for $105.49 — or rent it for $53.49! Take it from us — you will NOT regularly get a $50 return on your textbooks when you sell them back to your college bookstore.
Cups, Silverware, and Plates
You don’t need to go all Giada De Laurentiis and bring a 15-piece cookware set to your dorm, but some cups, a plate, a bowl, a fork, a spoon, and a knife will be necessary when you’ve barricaded yourself in your room for an intense study sesh and can’t spare an hour going to the dining hall (Easy Mac and Ramen noodles are your new best friends). We love the Her Campus Classy Cup, which comes in seven different colors and is a much cuter alternative to the red cups traditionally used for your favorite college party game… you know, stacking them into a pyramid. $3
Bedding
Make it easy on yourself: Get all your bedding at once and check off cozy dorm room supplies from your list thanks to OCM. It includes two full changes of bedding, an egg crate mattress pad, a reversible comforter, a hamper, towels, and much, much more! $199
Underbed Storage
In case you didn’t get it yet: extra storage space is key. The Container Store’s Underbed Boxes are perfect to slide under your newly raised bed. $10.99
Ultrabook
Ultrabooks, a new category of super powerful yet seriously portable laptops, were pretty much engineered with the go-getter collegiette in mind! Leading the pack is the ASUS Zenbook UX32, a gorgeous vision in aluminum powered by all the latest technology in a mere 3.2 pound body. Talk about a smart shopping decision! $1,299
Room Decor
Stickr Corners will immediately add some color to your room and make it easy for you to hang up photos of family and friends from home. And best of all? They won’t damage the walls and leave you with fines from the housing office. $8.95
Quick Picks:
Don’t forget to get these essentials before leaving home:
- Enough school supplies to get you started: notebooks, binders, pens, pencils, highlighters, staplers, etc.
- Flash drive and external hard drive
- Extension cords and surge protectors
- Enough clothes to last you until your first major trip home
- Shoes: flip flops, shower shoes, snow boots, rain boots, sneakers, heels
- Book bag or tote bag
- Health & Beauty Aids: shampoo, conditioner, soap, razor, etc.
- Blow dryer and hair straighter (if you use them)
- Medicine: Advil, Tylenol, Midol, BandAids, etc.
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SKIP IT!
Clothes you never wear
Trust me; that orange puff-ball sweater you got for Christmas 2006 will not magically become in vogue in college, and you will never get the urge to don those ratty jeans that you’ve been avoiding for the past few years. Save your closet space—there won’t be much of it.
Clothes that don’t fit you
Sure, it seems like a good idea to keep those too-tight jeans in case you drop a few pounds. Spoiler alert: you will never wear those jeans (and you likely won’t drop a few pounds freshman year). They will sit taking up space in your overstuffed drawers for 10 months, taunting you, or you will forget they’re even there. And if you do start hitting the college gym a couple times a week, why not reward yourself with new clothes instead?
High school memorabilia
Your letter jacket was the ultimate display of your stellar high school swimming career, and your “Class of 2012” T-shirt had the coolest design ever on the back, but you won’t want to wear either of them once you’re on campus. College is about reinventing yourself and becoming the person you’ve always wanted to be, so don’t bring your past with you. And while you may think you want to bring a yearbook with you, trust us — just check Facebook if you want to reminisce about high school.
Tons of books to read or movies to watch in your spare time
Two or three light reads and a couple DVDs to use for dorm movie nights won’t hurt, but a 100-disc DVD rack will just waste space. Think about it: your time will now be divided between classes, studying, going to the dining hall with friends, hanging out on the quad, meeting new people, partying, and extracurriculars—how much spare time will you actually have?
Alcohol
Having alcohol in the dorms is most certainly not allowed at most schools, and did we mention you’ll most certainly meet your RA when you move in? Don’t get in trouble on the first day (or ever). If you absolutely can’t wait to explore your newfound freedom with a little partying, go to a fraternity party, but be smart about your alcohol consumption.
Other illegal substances
Bad idea. Just don’t bring them. Your body (and your roommate) will thank you.
Candles
Another university no-no; most dorms won’t allow them, and when you’re studying for midterms by candlelight at 4 a.m. and you accidentally fall asleep on your econ textbook, that’s when disasters happen.
Extra furniture
Check your school’s housing website to confirm before you pack, but most dorm rooms will come with a bed, a desk, a chair, a dresser, and a closet. Your dorm is likely to have all the furniture necessary for a successful year at college, so you don’t need to bring an extra bookshelf or an ultra-fancy executive office chair (unless that’s just how you roll—no pun intended).
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An entire year’s worth of school supplies
All the other students at your school need pencils and paper, too. There will be a store nearby where you can stock up on sticky notes and ballpoint pens to your heart’s desire whenever you run out (thank you, Walgreens), so don’t fill up your space right at the beginning of the semester. “I brought two Costco-sized packages of pens and six rolls of scotch tape—totally not necessary!” says Elyssa, a sophomore at Boston University. No need to fill your dorm up like a bomb shelter at the start of the year unless you suspect an upcoming nuclear threat to your campus (and in that case, your problems might be a little bigger than just organizing your dorm space effectively).
An enormous stereo system
Having a huge speaker system so the rest of the dorm can have dance parties in your room might make you your hallmates’ new BFF, but if it takes up all the counter space in your room (and said dance parties happen during designated study time), you probably won’t be your new roommate’s BFF.
Nails or thumbtacks
Nails and thumbtacks leave holes in walls. Holes in walls make your school’s housing department unhappy. An unhappy housing department will charge you for damages. No Channing Tatum poster is worth it. Same rule goes for adhesives and hooks that don’t say “comes off cleanly.”
Old textbooks
We guarantee you, you will not “go back to them for reference” for your college classes—there’s a reason why you (unfortunately) have to buy all those other textbooks your professors require. “My freshman year I took an American history class so I thought it would be great idea to bring my AP History book from high school that I still had. I also brought this huge book I had that goes into detail about the presidents from Washington to George W.,” said Jamie, a senior at GWU. “I definitely didn’t open either up once. I did end up using them as a stand for my makeup mirror, but in the end they just took up space.” On second thought, maybe bringing those old textbooks isn’t such a bad idea…
An unedited Facebook profile
Meeting tons of new people means adding tons of new Facebook friends, so make sure your profile is easily searchable… and something you’d actually want your new friends to see. “Facebook is how people will actually remember you during the whirlwind of freshman orientation and hundreds of introductions,” says Harper, a sophomore at The College of William & Mary. “If your profile picture is of a silly cat, people will have a harder time finding and remembering you.” And if your profile is full of angry, whining status updates about how you hate fake backstabbing b*tches and how horrible your life is, they might not want to stay friends with you for much longer.
Toaster ovens, George Foreman grills, rice cookers, etc. (things that the housing association will not allow)
Fines: they are not fun. Save the dorm space and the trouble with your RA and just don’t bring prohibited items (you can find a list of them on your housing department’s website). You’ll be perfectly fine without a rice cooker in your room, just like everybody else.
As a general rule, if you haven’t used or worn something in a while, you probably won’t need it in your dorm. And if anything makes you say, “Well, I haven’t used this in the past, but maybe I’ll use this in college,” you probably don’t need to bring it. If you really want it later, you can always go to Target or wait until fall break or Thanksgiving break to get it from home.
Another important thing to remember: no matter what you bring, you will survive, and you will have an amazing first year at college! And be sure to thank whoever’s helping you with the heavy lifting.
Image Sources:
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moving in image via Shutterstock