Right when you think moving in to a dorm was hard, you’re getting e-mails from your RA telling you that if you’re not moved out by a certain time after your last final, housing staff will physically remove you from the room and you realize that you actually have a lot more stuff than you realized. Moving out is about ten times harder, a thousand times more tedious, and takes a million times longer than moving in did. And since everyone knows college students don’t clean their dorm rooms the way they should (regularly), here are some tips for the impending doom of packing up and facing that one corner between your bed and the wall that has become covered in a thick blanket of dust.
Get started a couple of days in advance. Maybe you don’t need a week to move out (or, maybe you do depending on the size of your closet) but three or four days is usually a good time to start packing, that way you aren’t doing it all at once in the middle of finals.
Do laundry. This is a good thing to do before moving out, that way you don’t have to stress about sorting too many dirty clothes from clean clothes (then end up just throwing them all together in one suitcase because you can’t be bothered by it), and it will save you a lot of time when you get home.
Packing up your clothes: When you pack your clothes, start with heavy winter clothes that you’re absolutely positive you won’t be wearing: jackets, heavy sweaters, that one random taco costume you have for Halloween. Keep out the clothes you know you will wear, and some warmer essentials just in case, so that you won’t have to go digging through your suitcases in the middle of the week for a single article of clothing.
Use space bags. Seriously.
Bathroom products: Put your bathroom products in a storage bin, organized in a way that like-shaped/sized/weight containers are together to avoid anything from crushing or spilling open, like your hairspray because that’s a tragedy waiting to happen that’s basically impossible to come back from. Throw out anything that you can, but only if it’s almost empty. If you’re tight for space and you only have maybe one more wash out of your shampoo bottle, just toss it.
Throwing things out: Definitely do this as early as you can. Chances are you’ve probably accumulated a lot of things over the course of two semesters that have been taking up a lot of space in your desk. Throw out your dried up highlighters, notebooks, that one giant folder with your life in it, and whatever else you’ve accumulated that you know you won’t be needing anymore and keep the things that you know you will use. Try to keep like-supplies together (rubber band your pens, etc.) and don’t hang on to a Calculus notebook if you don’t actually think you’re going to use those notes in the future. Clean out your fridge, starting with the two-week old Chinese food that has no chance of being consumed without you also getting food poisoning.
Speaking of fridges… DON’T UNPLUG YOUR FRIDGE LAST MINUTE. It will flood. Turn the temperature down in increments every hour and leave a towel underneath it. Only unplug it when you’ve completely shut it off. Keep the fridge door open to avoid mildew.
Save your decorations for last for two reasons: they’re nice to look at, and it’s arguably the easiest part. You’ll probably end up throwing out some of the photos that you’ve had hanging up so it’s good to do it when you know how much space you have to work with. Lay your posters one on top of the other and roll them up all at once to keep from having several different tubes of Snoop Dogg‘s face.
Sell your text books. Textbooks take up a lot of space. AU buys books back for cash at the bookstore, so try to utilize that, and get there early! There’s always a really long line. If they don’t take a book for whatever reason, try to find someone that’s taking that class next semester and sell it to them. If you really liked a text book for one of your major classes, hold on to it. Those will come in handy for papers in the future.
Consider summer storage. This is especially helpful for students that live far away. If you do use summer storage, make sure that you’re only storing things that you’re positive you won’t need. (Soooo not the taco costume. You never know when you’ll need it.) The last thing you want is to be searching around for a sweater when a random cold and rainy day hits in the middle of July.
Enjoy ringing in summer!!
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