Making Sure You’ve Got Everything You Need When You Head Off To College

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So the time has finally come for you or one of your kids to head off to college! You always knew this day was going to come, but it probably feels as though it has come around a lot sooner than you had hoped. Everything likely feels a bit up in the air at the moment as you are running around trying to ensure you have everything one could need to be comfortable and ready to start the academic year. Don’t worry though, because we have written this article to help you out a bit. We’ve created a handy checklist of the things that you need when you are getting ready for someone to head off to college. Keep reading to find out what these things are!

Books

The first, and potentially one of the most important things that you are going to need is text books! You can’t go to your classes and be prepared to get the best grade possible if you don’t have your books ready and waiting to go. If you want to be extra prepared, you can even get a jump on reading some of the first chapters so that when you get to your class, you understand what your professor is talking to you about without having to struggle to understand it. This is going to put you in a great position for the beginning of the year, and you will notice how much easier your classes are if you are prepared in advance.

Before you can do this though you need to make sure that you have purchased all the necessary books. Most colleges will send you a list of what you need to buy when you get accepted onto your course, so make sure that you have gone ahead and purchased everything that you need. Then you can get reading, pack it up and be ready to face the year.

Bedding

You aren’t going to have a very comfortable experience at college if you don’t have bedding. You need to make sure that your bed is a safe space that you can come to, and for this to happen, it has to be comfortable. Your bedsheets are going to be a part of your room, so choose them carefully. Also, make sure that you have some comfortable pillows, a couple of cushions to make it look more aesthetically appealing and also for an added layer of comfort. There is nothing better than flopping onto your bed after a hard day of school and being surrounded by cuddly cushions.

Make sure that you have also packed a couple of blankets because you never know how cold it is going to get in your new dorm. You need to be able to wrap yourself up warm when it comes time to get some sleep, so two or three might seem like overkill, but you are going to thank us when everyone else is cold, and you are snug.

Personal Items

Heading to college is going to be a difficult time for a lot of people, so take time to bring a few personal items with you. Whether this is a cuddly toy that helps you to sleep (don’t worry – no one has to know why you brought your teddy bear), or if it is pictures of your friends and family that remind you of home. Whatever you decide to take with you, be careful to only take stuff that makes you happy. You want your whole experience to be as enjoyable as possible, so bring items that will spark joy, not things that could make you sad or tie you to a past that you would sooner forget.

You’re going to be living in this dorm room for at least a year, so it’s worth taking the time to make it your own. It needs to feel like your second home, and if there is nothing personal here, it’s just not going to happen.

A Good Phone Plan

Obviously, calling home and your friends is going to be important, so you’ll want to have a good cell phone plan. Look at things like SMARTY sim only deals if you already own your phone outright because this could save you a lot of money. Sim only deals mean that you are only paying for the calls, texts, and data, rather than the phone itself. Make sure you get enough minutes and data to last you throughout the month because running out is going to be the last thing you need to think about when you’ve got classes.

Do your research to find the plan that is going to suit you the most. It is no good just going with what everyone else has because it might be too much or too little for you. Just keep in mind that you want to be able to contact home, your friends, scroll the internet and the other tasks you need your phone to do.

A Budget Plan

You are now going to be responsible for yourself, which means you need to know how to have a budget and how to stick to it. This is something that not everyone is good at, but you are going to need to learn if you want to make it through the entire school year without going broke. So, sit down and work out how much money you are going to have. Once you have done this, you can start looking into expenses that you are going to have to pay. Make a list of these so that you don’t forget and miss anything in your calculations. Then, take away what you are going to have to pay from the amount of money you are going to have, and this is what you have left for everything else.

At times, it is probably going to be tempting to go over your budget, but the best advice that we can give you is to stick to it as much as you can. You never know when you are going to need some of that cash.

Enough Clothes

Some people don’t take that many clothes to college, which is confusing for the rest of us. You need so many different outfits. Comfortable clothes, smart clothes, going out clothes, pajamas, relaxing clothes and so on. You can try to plan as much as you want, but you never know for sure exactly what you are going to be doing on any given day, and if something crops up that you want to do, it is important that you have the clothes to be able to do this.

As well as this, you don’t want to be doing your laundry every other day because this is going to work out quite expensive. Instead, you want to have enough clothes so that you have to do one or two loads every week or so. Then, you will always have clean clothes, but it isn’t going to cost you a fortune to get everything clean.

Small Safe

Finally, if you have valuable items that you are worried about leaving in your room, then you need to think about taking a small safe with you. You can put anything in here that you are worried about, and hide the safe somewhere that nobody should be looking. Even if they do find it, if they don’t have the combination, it is going to be useless.

We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now know some of the things that you are going to need when you head off to college. Hopefully, you are going to have a great experience there!