How to Prepare for Moving in to College
There are many places where you could start preparing for leaving home and attending college. You could start your Junior year in high school. You could wait until the week before you leave. Some people wait until they get there to actually prepare. It all depends on your personality. I myself am a procrastinator but, the intent of this article is to realistically prepare you for leaving for college. Therefore I would recommend starting to prepare the June following your senior year of high school.
By June following your senior year you should have decided what school you will be attending. If you have not done this, then this is your first step. You need to have a college picked out in order to properly prepare to move out of your home.
The next step is to determine your residence. Many universities require you to stay in campus housing your first year but you should confirm that this is the case. If this is not the situation then you need to determine whether or not you will be living in campus housing or in an apartment. With the most common case being that you will be living in campus housing the remainder of this article will deal with moving into campus housing.
What you now need to do is determine what your university provides. This can be found under a campus living, residence hall, or a similar tab on their website. Most colleges and universities will tell you what comes with the living space. Most often it will include limited furniture such as a desk or table and a bed. Most times the bed is a twin extra long so keep that in mind when purchasing bedding. Also keep in mind that the mattresses tend not to be comfortable so some sort of bed pad may need to be purchased if you do not like a firm bed.
Once you have determined what the university will provide you will want to try and get in contact with your roommate. If you do not know who your roommate is the university or college will normally have some method that you can, at the minimum, acquire the name of your future living partner. With their name you at least have the opportunity to try and connect with them via Facebook. Sometimes you can even get a phone number or email address. What you want to do is reach out to this person and try to figure out what they have and what they plan on bringing.
Once you have done this you will want to track down a list of things that may be needed for college. Some universities will provide a basic list of things you need but they normally do not have everything that you will want. The following link will take you to the most extensive list I have ever seen: http://www.collegepackinglist.com/. While this may seem like a lot you will want to try to get most of the things on this list. The reason being is that it is better to have too much stuff your first year than not having enough things.
Once you check off the things you already have and check off the things your roommate already has then you should figure out what things are more community things. What I mean by community things are stuff you will only need one of such as a television. Once you have determined all of these speak with your roommate and try to divide up the list by how much each of you will be able to spend. Now that you have the list and it is still early June you need to look for deals all summer long. You know what you need and you should get it for the cheapest price. Once August begins approaching you will first want to check on different websites like Ebay, Craigslist, and Amazon for cheap prices for the items you still need. Once August hits you should begin purchasing everything you don’t have where ever you can get it for what ever price you can get it at.
Once you have all of your items begin packing everything away in a manner that will be easy to transport. For example in boxes, tubs, and duffle bags. Try to make these large containers but do not plan on filling them full. If you fill them full in most cases they will be way to heavy to carry. You do want them to be large though so can fit all of those light things in the extra space.
Once you have done all of this say your goodbyes and you are ready to go and get started on the rest of your life.
Good Luck.
