If you look up "dorm shopping essentials", the Internet will present you with an absurd list of items that most homeowners don't even have. We've all learned how to separate what Bed Bath & Beyond insists is "essential" from actual necessities. Less is best when you're living on a college budget.
1. Chasers
Most college students make sure there is always enough alcohol to get through the weekend, but what most partygoers assume someone ELSE has are chasers. Mooching off of one guy's lemonade and another's soda might be what gets you through the night.
2. Hair ties
Whether it's right before a walk to the cafeteria, a trip to the gym or the moment you walk into class, one of your friends is bound to need a hair tie. Most people with long hair always have one on hand, but we all forget sometimes, and if you're like me, you never have them. Especially in the world of women's sports, someone on the team will surely come in clutch with the hair ties.
3. Clorox wipes
Spill on your desk? Laptop? Your friend's stuff? Clorox wipes clean everything in college, and luckily, your next door neighbor is bound to have some.
4. Tampons
Meeting friends in the ladies room is great and pretty common. The best, though, is when you need a feminine product and the lady next to you happens to have one in her purse.
5. Band-aids
If you slice your finger open on that beer can or fall after having a little too much fun (or the ice), you immediately scramble for a bandaid as you hold a napkin to your injury. Upon finding none, you find someone down your hall that has them, but you still refuse to buy them.
6. Quarters
Some of us students have the great privilege of not only paying for tuition, a place to live, and food-but LAUNDRY too! If you're lucky you find a few quarters laying around, but in the days of Venmo and credit cards, it's pretty rare.
7. Hand sanitizer
Remember that one girl with the horse lunchbox, bow in her hair, and mini hand sanitizer hanging from her backpack? Yeah, you'll miss her in college, because you seem to ALWAYS need hand sanitizer with all the germs and possible messes. I've been lucky enough to find a friend in each class just clean enough to carry some on them.
8. TUMS
Your parents probably sent you with a life's supply of Motrin, but sometimes your stomach just isn't agreeing with the cafeteria food or the vodka. One friend always seems to have a giant tub of these chalky, chewy lifesavers. (Thanks, Paige).
9. A pencil
It's moments before the big exam, and of course you come in full-minded but empty-handed. Whisper to the really smart kid next to you, they definitely have a pencil and probably an extra BlueBook.
10. A printer
Let's be real, nobody's going to go to the library EVERY time they need to print something. But nobody wants to buy a printer for college. Offering free paper to someone that does will probably secure you a printer for the year.
11. Command hooks
Those cute wall decorations always seem to be falling off. And when you get a new poster or string of lights, there never seem to be leftover Command strips or hooks. Ask around, odds are, someone's parents bought them the jumbo pack.
12. Tide pods
No not to eat. But, dryer sheets too. We don't realize how much we actually need to do laundry and how expensive detergent is.
13. A lighter
Take this as you wish, but I borrow them to light candles, which are also illegal in dorm rooms.
14. A vacuum
Whether you dropped all of your chips or get tangled in dust bunnies, there's even a point in which college kids feel they need to run a vacuum. Because there's no room for one, some REALLY clean people buy hand-vacs. Find one of these people.
15. A Chegg account
The amount of Snapchat stories and desperate group message texts begging for someone's Chegg login is comical. I'm sure it's a really helpful tool, but after paying for books, a tutor, and a fancy calculator, you don't subscribe to a website that basically does your homework. If you do pay for that, you're a good person for giving all those people your login, because I know so many people that use it, but none that pay for it.
16. A stapler
You know how every teacher in grade school had a stapler that was ALWAYS full and a 3-hole punch that ALWAYS worked? College doesn't have those. Fold the corner of your papers together or make a friend who purchases these.
17. Tape
Tape is way more useful than you'll ever know until you get to college. Cherish that stuff, because there's no universal "junk drawer" in college.
If you're the person that actually pays for all of these, I'm so sorry and thank you.
