| Decorating Your Dorm: Office Posted: 10 Jul 2011 06:00 AM PDT By: Lindsey, CS editor. Follow me @lindzcook13. Editor’s note: This is the third post in a series about decorating your dorm room in specific spaces. Read the introduction here, the bedroom post here and be on the lookout for a breakdown of your living room, closet, kitchen and bathroom. Most of your office is fortunately (or unfortunately, if the desk is not to your liking) done for you. Standard dorms include both a desk chair and a desk. Some even include a hutch that goes over the desk and features a bookshelf. Still, you’ll need to bring things to outfit the desk to fit your study needs. 
Picture of my dorm room last year at the University of Georgia What You’ll Need: - Office Supplies: Legal pads, calendar, binders, paper, notecards, clipboard, pens, pencils, reference books, sticky notes, stapler, staples, tape, scissors, push pins, paperclips, highlighters, mouse pad etc. You’ll need whatever you used in high school (and then some) to stay organized and keep your studies in order. I am in love with the Papaya desk accessories (linked to above), but anything will do.
- Lap Desk: You’l need a lap desk for when you get tired of your desk. I hate working at desks and rarely sat at mine, but I used my lap desk all the time while I worked on my futon or bed.
- Desk Chair: Check with housing before you buy. Usually, dorms provide a chair, which is sometimes comfortable and sometimes not. My advice is to wait until you see your chair before deciding if you want to buy another. Before you buy, ask housing if they can take your old chair. Some colleges require dorm furniture to stay in the room and some allow it to be removed.
- Cord Control: This goes for your entire room: you’ll have lots and lots of things to plug in and very few outlets. I suggest buying surge protectors like Electroman. Even if you think you have enough, you’ll probably be rushing out to Walmart like I was. I think I came home from college with eight cord stations and three extension cords.Depending on how many electronics you deal with on a daily basis and how many USB ports your computer has, a USB hub might also be helpful.
 Items: sticky notes, journal, lap desk, USB hub
- Computer: You can’t go to college without some sort of computer. This isn’t the ’80s; pen and paper just won’t cut it. Laptops are great, but I’m in love with my iPad (yes, I am one of those people). I take it to class with me for notes and download my textbooks online instead of running to the bookstore. Between all my textbooks, notebooks and my heavy computer, it saves me a lot of weight.
- School Bag: You’ll want a go-to bag that you can grab on your way to class and quickly cram all the reading from the night before into its pockets. I brought my backpack from high school, which apparently couldn’t handle college life because it broke after a month. Make sure you have something sturdy. If you want a more fashionable alternative, try a tote bag. Also, check out this list by Refinery 29 on 18 Cute backpacks. If you plan on lugging your laptop around from time to time, you also need a laptop case or sleeve.
- Book Ends: If you don’t have a hutch on your desk, you’re going to need some type of storage to hold books you reference on a daily basis such as textbooks or your AP Stylebook if you are a journalism major. This is something I forgot originally and had to go back and buy. It keeps your desk organized without having books piled on desktop.
Items: brown backpack, gray backpack, tote bag, literal bookends, gun bookends - Lamp: Your dorm room will most likely have one central headlight. If you dorm room is like mine was, you’ll be in the dark most of the time so bring a lot of lamps. Keeping your room well lit makes you feel more awake and less depressed. Make sure your desk lamp is bright enough to see your work, but not bright enough to blind you when you look at it too closely.
- Desktop Organization: Some sort of storage for pens and the like is necessary. You’ll also need those handy drawer organizers for your pens. If you are a bit anal about your organization (like me), you’ll want file folders and some sort of file cabinet. Just because your desk looks like it has a file cabinet inside doesn’t mean it actually has one, so check before you cross file cabinet off your list.
- Board: I recommend a bulletin board, white board or wall calendar for behind your desk. It can be distracting to look at pictures from your last vacation when you are studying so try to keep your desk area strictly school-related.
 Items: lamps, bulletin boards, desk storage
- Printer: If you know who your roommate will be or have had any sort of contact with her, you should divvy-up who is going to bring certain things so you don’t double up. The best way to maximize dorm space is to have one of everything, not two. Talk to your roommate about who’s bringing what. Share a printer and split the cost of ink and paper if possible. If you share, try to buy a wireless printer so you don’t have to switch off plugging in to the printer.
- Trash can: Your dorm room most likely comes with a trash can. Check before you buy one. You probably don’t need it unless you want to have three different trash cans to sort your recycling into, which is what my roommate and I ended up with. Your dorm may even come equipped with trash bags. Call the housing department of your college or look on your website before you buy anything so you know what comes with your room.
- Internet: Same with the trash can, you’ll want to call before you buy. Unless your dorm comes equipped with wifi, you’ll need an ethernet cable or a wireless router.
Items: headphones, turntable, camera, Hershey’s USB, camera USB, iPad case
- External storage: BACK UP YOUR WORK! I cannot stress this enough. Mid-semester, I had this stress dream about my computer dying and me losing all the writing samples I had ever written. Go ahead and save yourself the stress by backing up your computer. Buy an external hard drive and back up everything on your computer at least once a week. Also, you can use dropbox (it’s free) to save your documents to a magical cloud where all your documents are available anywhere you have internet access. If you are really stressing, use a USB drive also. Back-up your computer however many ways you need to feel comfortable that if your computer fell in a bathtub tomorrow or got struck by lighting or got stolen on a bus, your life would still go on.
- Essential electronics: headphones, iPod, iPad, iPhone (I swear, I don’t get paid by Apple, I just love its products), digital camera, Gameboy color, or whatever else you want. Don’t forget the cords that match with these and batteries. Also, bring a flashlight for walking around campus at night or fumbling around your room in the dark when your roommate is sleeping.
Thoughts Did I forget anything for the office? What will you bring and what will you bring behind? As always email info@college-style.com or tweet us @collegestyle12 with any design questions or comments! |
0 comments:
Post a Comment