It's the first day back at college. You've just moved all of your stuff into your ridiculously small dorm room. You don't know where to start so you just open a random bag, figuring, hey, you've got to start somewhere. You open up the bag and see junk. I'm not talking just a mix of random stuff, but oh-my-goodness-why-did-I-pack-this junk. You glance around your tiny dorm room and you get the first worrying thought: Did I pack too much?
Packing to move back into college can be a frustrating and exhilarating experience for anyone. On one hand, you're practically bursting at the seams with excitement to be back with your friends, living it up with no parents trying impose ridiculous rules on you. I mean, come on, a curfew?!? Who needs it? On the other hand, home has that special something that just makes it home. And no matter how much we enjoy ourselves at school, we'll always miss home just a little bit. So to compensate, we tend to overpack to the extreme.
We end up throwing everything we think might be useful to have the time of our lives into a bag, even though it will probably just end up as clutter crowding the already crowded space that makes up our dorm rooms. Speakers? Check. Beach Volleyball? Check. Blue Morph Suit? Check. A fake wand thing that you might have gotten at Harry Potter World but you don't really remember? Check. We also throw tons of small knickknacks and decorations in an attempt to make our tiny space feel a bit more like home.
The result of trying to balance a homeyness for our rooms while trying to be prepared for every outrageous activity we might come up with in college? A stressful unpacking experience. To help make life a bit easier while unpacking your dorm room, follow these steps.
- Make up your bed. Even if you get nothing else done, you'll at least have a comfy place to sleep. Seeing an inviting bed made up might also give you just enough motivation to keep unpacking.
- Unpack your clothing. I'm not talking about the cape you grabbed just in case there's a themed party where it might come in useful. I'm talking your everyday clothing. Hang up your nicer clothes in the closet and fold the basics into your drawers. This step might even force you to organize those annoying plastic drawers we all use because college really seems to lack real storage space.
- Set up your desk. You're in college so you need to do some work for class... Right?
- Decorate your room. Hang up the photos you brought to decorate your walls. Add all the little knickknacks scattered around the room to make it feel like yours. Enjoy this part! You have to live with it for eight months so it should be something you're happy with.
- Sort through the junk. Now that you've got the basics done, go ahead and start to muddle through all the random junk you threw into your bag just because. Use bins under your bed to keep everything organized and make sure to keep the things you're more likely to actually use handy.
- Pack a bag to go back home. There's bound to be a great deal of things that you just know you won't use. Pack all those items into a bag to be tucked under the bed and out of the way. Then the next time your parents visit or you go home grab the bag so it doesn't clutter your tiny space.
Follow these steps and unpacking should be a quick and relatively painless process. Plus you should be all set before you head out to enjoy your first night back at college. I mean, hello, no curfew when you're away from home.
