The subject of dorm room supplies deserves a long ramble. I have a massive spreadsheet of college supplies that we are working through. We probably overdo it. I will work on cleaning up our list and making it generic and see if I can post it here. Meanwhile I will talk off the top of my head.
Bedding – We gave her a “Bed in a Bag” for Christmas, with a comforter in her favorite color and a set of sheets. We will get another set of sheets in a coordinating color. I think it is good to have two sets. Normally, they probably just pull the sheets off, wash them, and put them back on, but there can be times, like if they are sick and they really need fresh sheets, but don’t feel up to running the laundry, where it can be helpful to have a second set. I usually get two sets of towels – in two different colors, so that they can tell which ones are clean. Some of them have had a sink in their room, so they need a hand towel to hang by the sink and a bath towel to go to the shower. You need to make sure that they have a way to hang their towel. This may be as simple as a coat hanger that they can hang on the corner of something. Some dorm rooms have towel rods. But they are used to just hanging them in the bathroom, which doesn’t work when you are sharing a bathroom down the hall. They must not just wad the towel somewhere, because it will get icky, so you need to make sure they have a set place to put it. I also like to send them with some sort of folding drying rack – for the clothes that can’t go in the dryer and for wet clothes on a rainy day.
I have gotten a basic memory foam mattress topper from Walmart – no specific one. You might want a thicker one than my little girl will need. I get a waterproof, allergy proof, bedbug proof mattress cover to put over the mattress, the foam topper (which probably goes under the waterproof cover), and a quilted mattress pad to go under the sheet. Two different sets of sheets; a pillow or two; a blanket; and a comforter. Make sure everything is xl twin for dorm beds. These are available most places during the summer.
My girls think a backrest pillow is a necessity, as they mostly study sitting on their bed. I think my guys mostly studied at their desks, so they didn’t need such things. The girls also go a lot more into the dorm décor than the guys ever did.
We usually give them a suitcase for a graduation gift. It is nice to have a new one for any trips that might come up with college groups. It can carry stuff to college, and usually fits under their bed. There it can be used to store occasional use stuff.
Yes, we always get them a new laptop for college. She is using an old one now that is falling apart, so she will need a new one. She also needs a new phone, so this is getting expensive.
Some contacts at her school warned her to bring rain boots, because the rain tends to pool badly on the sidewalks on campus. An umbrella is also needed. They will be outside a lot more than they are used to, as they have to walk across campus to class no matter what the weather is like. She will also get a rain jacket with a hood.
We went through her class list today, and mapped it all out on the campus map. (She registered for classes on Monday.) Her required Lifetime Fitness class is over a mile away from her choir that meets the previous hour, with only ten minutes to get from one to the other (if choir lets out on time!). So she will be taking her bike. Riding a bike in the rain requires a hooded rain jacket, since you can’t exactly ride with an umbrella.
Surge protectors and command strips are necessities. Actually, check with your school. Some require command strips and some forbid them. Some require sticky tack and some forbid it. We had one that allowed push pins in the wall, but not sticky tack, as they said tiny holes didn’t matter, but the blue putty left blue dye on the paint. Whatever. You just need to check the rules in your particular dorm. Most dorms will not allow extension cords, but will require surge protectors. The length of cord needed will vary with the layout of the room. We’re getting two with 6ft. cords. If there is a particular need for a longer one, we can get that after she moves in.
One of my guys passed down to the rest of them the tip to get two staplers! One is a large desktop stapler that stays on your desk. The other is a little mini-stapler that lives in your backpack. When you print out that paper in the library (or wherever your print service is) and pick it up on the way to class, then you need to be able to staple it before handing it in. Also, you become everyone’s best friend when they arrive at class with a paper they just picked up, and you have a stapler for them to use! Some of this may change as more things go online and more papers are just emailed in. We’ll see.
I get an assortment of desk stuff, like pens, pencils, scissors, paper clips, rubber bands, and scotch tape. Some of them like one big 5-subject notebook for everything, and some like separate one-subject notebooks for each class. I buy a pack of 3×5 file cards for notes. If they make notes on cards as they are reading or studying, they can carry a little stack of cards in their pocket. Then when they have a few minutes, waiting for the next class to start, waiting in line at the cafeteria (if things like that are happening – all school cafeteria routines are changing with the present situation!), then they can pull out their own flash cards and study for the next exam. Some of them use them; some of them don’t. I’ll spend the 78 cents on the cards so they can use them if they will.
A friend recommended some blue Ikea bags, and they look handy. The bright blue clashed with my daughter’s mint green color scheme, but Walmart has similar ones in black with pink or clear with black. These zip to hold all of your stuff, and have backpack straps as well as handles for easy carrying. You can even use them as a laundry basket to carry your clothes to and from the laundry room. Put your name on them!
One tip we have is for packing clothes. We usually use the medium size packing boxes – the square ones. When you are packing hanging clothes from your closet, DO NOT take them off of the hangers! Grab a handful of clothes by the hangers, lay them in the box or bag and fold over, back and forth if needed. Then grab the next handful and lay them in, folding as needed. Continue until all of the clothes are packed. When you get there, you lift out a handful of clothes, hang them in the closet, and lift out the next handful. It gets them unpacked and put away very quickly. When one daughter moved into her dorm freshman year, she had a roommate who brought a TON of clothes. (Don’t do that.) We unpacked her clothes into her closet, put together her bed, and put everything else away here and there, and her roommate’s mom was still sitting there putting clothes onto hangers. You do NOT want to spend your day doing that! She took note of how we did it, and said she would do that next time.
Another thing I probably over-buy is underwear. Okay, let’s be realistic. How often are they actually going to run their laundry? Ideally they find a time to put into their weekly schedule for this task. However, if they are running behind, preparing for exams, or finishing up a project, they may not get to it. You can wear clothes again, but I’d rather they have clean undies, so I send them with enough for 3 or 4 weeks.
Tools. Long ago, I was the one in my dorm who always had a hammer. I can’t tell you what we needed it for, but I know that many people sought me out for it. Dorm room beds are often adjustable, but you may need a screw driver, a pair of pliers, or rubber mallet to knock it out of a slot. A basic tool kit or a multi-tool can be a good idea. If nothing else, you can get a hammer, mallet, screw drivers, and pliers at Dollar Tree. $4 gets you the basics. I think I am going to give her a little multi-tool I have in my desk drawer that has screwdrivers, a pocket knife, and pliers in the handle of a little hammer, all in a nice little case. You don’t want to overwhelm their storage space.
Look at things that they share with a sibling. Mine just realized that the two sisters share a hair dryer, so we need to get another one. They also share a lot of clothes, so that will have to be addressed somehow.
Storage can be handled in several ways. Look at the information given about the dorm they are going into, and look at the stuff they are taking, and see if you can figure out how it will fit. There are various choices for storage. It just depends on the kid and the dorm. One solution is underbed boxes. They can use that space under the bed and hold some stuff that you don’t need to get to very often, like the extra sheets or the out-of-season clothes. But they are cumbersome, as you have to pull the whole thing out and open the top. There are drawer systems that can work, depending on the configuration of the space. Our last one took some modular plastic drawer units that MIL had left here. She found that the space under the bed was too small for the four drawers, but she could take them apart and put three drawers of one unit, three drawers of the other unit, and then the extra two drawers stacked. That seemed to work well in her freshman dorm room. After that, she moved into a campus apartment, where she had a bigger closet and she took a real dresser for her clothes. There are also various crates and things that can be useful. They just have to decide what they want. I can’t remember the guys dealing with this sort of thing. Probably because they had less stuff.
One thing that most of them found to be helpful was hanging shoe bags. There are two types that we used. One hangs on the back of a door and has pockets for shoes. If they have a wardrobe, this will hopefully fit on the back of the wardrobe door. We have also had them hanging in other interesting places. The other is like a set of cloth shelves that hang in the closet. Some have used those for shoes, and others have used them for other little things – like socks and underwear, or whatever they didn’t have room for in the tiny dresser that was provided. They load it up at home, and just move it into the dorm room already filled. You have to see how much hanging space there is, though, because those bags can take up precious hanging closet space.
We try to buy enough toiletries to get them through at least the first semester. They can buy more when they are home for Christmas. They really don’t want to fool with it while they are dealing with classes and homework and exams. So you list all of the different things that they use: soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste, floss, razors, lotion, lip balm, kleenex, contact solutions, contacts, contacts cases, laundry detergent. Nail clippers, nail file, comb, etc. I send a little bottle of dish detergent, a spray bottle of general cleaner, and a duster of some sort. There is always something that needs to be cleaned. Dollar Tree has some little disposable dusters.
Speaking of dishes, we send at least a bowl, a mug, a knife, fork, and spoon. You never know what food they might be eating in the dorm. I also send some food supplies like a couple of cans of chicken soup in case they are sick and can’t get to the dining hall. Most dorms have a kitchen somewhere they can access, or sometimes they bring a microwave in their room. Microwave popcorn contains toxic chemicals, but you can microwave regular popcorn in a paper lunch bag! A box of granola bars and various other snacks may be appreciated as well. Some like to take brownie mix and a square pan. Maybe a cookie sheet. The guys mostly like the girls who brought a cookie sheet.
Lamps. This one has a lamp in her favorite mint green that we picked up somewhere along the way. Several of my guys used floor lamps that have three lights at different heights. (Okay, one of them said that their lamp shorted out and put out the electricity to their whole floor – oops! Cheap lamps may not be reliable.) Several kids have gotten strings of white Christmas lights and strung them in various ways in their dorm rooms. Different schools also have different rules about this. Some have rules about not hanging anything on the ceiling. Some will let you put them along the wall near the ceiling, and some won’t. One of our guys had a loft with the desk and dresser underneath, and put the Christmas lights on the bottom of the bed to give ambient light in the desk area, in addition to a desk lamp. A lot depends upon the particular lighting situation in their room, which you won’t know until you get there. Clip on lamps might be helpful if there is a place to clip them. Again, it depends upon where they like to study and what the lighting is like in their room.
Rugs. This depends upon the dorm. If it is carpeted, you may not need one. If it is linoleum, you may want a rug. We have gotten area rugs or pieces of cheap carpet at Lowe’s or Home Depot. You can spend as much as you like on a rug. Or not. One kid, who studied sitting at the desk, got a fuzzy toilet seat cover and used it as a little rug under the desk. It fit nicely and kept her feet warm when the floor was cold. She got many compliments on it, and nobody knew what it really was. It just looked like a tiny rug.
One moved in and set up her room and then decided that she wanted one of those things that had a piece of cloth that goes under the mattress and pockets that hang down on the side, so she could put her phone, pencils and pens, notepad, and Bible in the pockets and have them handy by her bed.
Okay, there’s another tip. Arrive as soon as they will let you check into the dorm. Move them in and set things up, then survey what else you might need. Then you can run to Target or Walmart and get whatever else is desired. Now, it can be helpful to be there at the same time as your roommate, so you can agree on moving the furniture around and figure out who goes where. It is not so great to move in after your roommate has already chosen their “side” and moved their stuff in. Many times the furniture is not in the best arrangement when you arrive, and it is much easier to move the furniture around BEFORE moving all of your stuff into the room. If you get there first, you can experiment with moving things around into different configurations to see what works best in the room. (Usually every dorm room is different, with different projections in the wall, etc., so the furniture fits in a little differently. Go up and down the hall and look at different rooms, if you can, for ideas of arrangements that might work.)
Yes, definitely a medical kit. Think through a lot of the things that could happen to a college student and prepare for those things. We are an essential oils family, so I put together a kit of oils for a lot of basic needs. They may not know what to use, when, but they can call me and I can tell them what to use from their stash. Plus vitamins, elderberry, Airborne, ibuprofen, Tylenol, bandages, first aid cream. If they have ever used an ankle brace or a knee brace, send it along. (Note: If anyone gets this corona virus, they do not recommend ibuprofen, because there is some controversy about whether it may worsen a respiratory infection. Some recommend Tylenol/acetaminophen/paracetamol, but that is really not a good idea because it depletes glutathione, which is one of your body’s first line defenses against viruses. Some say it is better to just suffer through the fever, and others say you need to treat it. But you can always rub lemon and peppermint on your belly and spine to bring that cooling relief. And Vitamins C and D can be very important here.) And don’t forget a box or two of Kleenex!
It is exciting to be getting ready to go off to college! Make your plan, follow your plan, and away you go!
You’ll find a way!