Stuff I Learned Along the Way

While I couldn’t be prepared for everything I would encounter, I was able to adjust along the way. Here are a few things I learned throughout my first year at college:

Bring 2-3 bath towels.

I tend to use a lot of towels at home. Since I didn’t know how often I would do laundry, I brought along six. I didn’t need that much. Typically, I only used two before I did laundry. The most I ever used before a wash was three towels. I don’t know of anyone who needed more, so I would say bring at least two towels, but not more than three.

Bring a hand towel, too.

It seems that a lot of schools are trying to save paper or something, since not all bathrooms seem to have paper towels. Instead, there are electric hand dryers, which take forever to dry your hands sufficiently (because I expect you to wash your hands!). So, I recommend you keep a hand towel in your room. It’s a much more efficient way of drying your hands. Don’t forget to wash it every so often.

Know how the laundry machines operate.

I don’t mean know how to do your laundry – although that is important – but I mean know how to pay for it. Many machines are coin-activated, while some permit you to put money on your ID card and you can swipe to operate instead. If that’s the case, it is MUCH easier to put money on your card than to keep quarters stored somewhere. If you don’t know if you can add money electronically, make sure to bring lots of coins. It’s annoying to make change.

Dry your shower caddy every so often.

No matter how hard you try to keep your caddy from getting too wet, it always will get wet. Don’t let it stay too wet for too long. It, and the surface it’s on, might get moldy. That’s gross. So clean it up occasionally.

Prepare for the weather.

The only thing I knew about my school was that it snowed a lot in the area. I did not know that it was also super windy and rainy pretty much all the time. I had to get a rain coat in the middle of the semester, and I quickly learned that umbrellas weren’t useful because they would inevitably break from the wind. So get the gear you need ahead of time. Walking to your classes in unpleasant weather when you’re not well-equipped is no fun at all.

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