1. Command Hooks and Strips

Dorms are tricky, small spaces with a lot of regulations for how you can and cannot decorate. Command Strips solve a lot of decorating problems (posters, canvases, frames) that a lot of people would normally solve with a nail. Command Hooks offer a place to hang coats, towels, hats, scarves, purses, etc. when your closet space is limited and you need a place for your towel to dry. The hooks can also be used to hold up string lights, which is a common way that college students decorate their dorms.

If you're moving into a suite-style dorm, where you're sharing a bathroom with a few other people, I recommend the Command Caddies, particularly the ones made for the shower. It will give a place for you, and only you, to put your shampoo and bodywash that will keep it off the floor.

But seriously, you can never have enough Command Strips. And if you do have a surplus, you can use them next time you're in a new space or if you get a new framed photograph you want to hang. They leave no residue or any evidence that they were used, but do their job just fine while you want them to be on the wall.

2. Granola Bars

Maybe this one is a bit more on the personal side and less on the general side, but the principle of a granola bar spans across all types of people.

Granola bars. The quick, easy snack that's perfect for eating in the back of a lecture hall, while jogging across campus to make it on time to your early morning class that you overslept for and didn't have time to eat breakfast, or literally any time you're just a bit hungry and don't want to go to the dining hall.

When I was living on campus, and even now, I went through granola bars like water. I would eat them at breakfast with a piece of fruit, as dessert, as a midday snack, whatever. Having simple snacks, like a granola bar, on hand at any time, but especially in a dorm room where you don't have easy access to a kitchen, is super important for the hungry college kid.

Stock up, I tell you! Stock up!

Thank me later.

3. Cereal

A lot of mornings, you won't want to go to the dining hall for breakfast and waste a precious swipe (or precious meal plan money) on a bowl of cereal or a banana, y'know? Or, you'll want a late night snack while you're watching Netflix studying and a granola bar just won't cut it.

Having a few boxes of your favorite cereal on hand is never a bad thing, and buying cereal on campus is ridiculously expensive, so I really don't see the harm in having your mom/dad/whoever buy you a few boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch prior to move in day.

4. Socks and underwear

Look... the laundry room is all the way on the first floor. It costs money. The dryers take at least two cycles to get anything decently dry. People will move your wet clothes out of the washer and put them anywhere (the floor, on top of another washer, in someone else's hamper) if you so much as leave your clothes in there for three minutes after the cycle ends. It's not a fun time, okay?

All that said, you still need clean underwear.

Buy an extra pack of socks and an extra pack of underwear and a few cheap sports bras, because I can guarantee that you'll be lazy and wait 2.5-4 weeks to do your laundry every single time you need to do laundry.

5. Phone Chargers

Let's be honest. People tend to borrow other people's phone chargers and never give them back. You probably want to have a charger in your backpack so you can charge it wherever you are when the battery is low, and you probably want a separate charger to leave in your room all the time (so you don't forget to put the charger in your bag every morning and wind up at 10% without a charger, and you still have two more classes).

Chargers also have a tendency to break unexpectedly (or at least mine do). Having a spare phone charger or two is a smart idea, and it's not like they take up a ton of space.