Education Uni survival kit!

I think there might be a thread similar to this already, but I'm interested (as I'm sure are many others) as to how much I should take with me for my halls room. Would taking a small safe to keep expensive gadgets in be ott or worthwhile? Are the unis fussy about electricity consumption, and can you get away with running a mini fridge? Any other useful tips are much appreciated!

<A88>

 

No need to take a safe unless you have a shoddy lock on your door / you are truly paranoid / you're going somewhere where thievery is common.

They're not fussy about consumption although if it's anything like the halls I was in, we were advised not to run Kettles and other very high power things in our rooms - of course everyone did though, and nothing was ever said. You'll be fine with a mini fridge

 

Some uni's have plugs with trips in them so only a certain amount of current can be taken from the socket.

FYI (to all): if you're not used to living on your own the first 3 months til Christmas are the hardest you'll ever do, and once you get the first year done it should be all strawberries, waffles and Cheesecake.

 

As long as you can fit it in you'll be fine.

One thing I will say, is get a BIG (5kg) bag of Rice and/or Pasta. They make the perfect staple food if you forget to go shopping.

 

Don't take a safe. Make sure you insure everything properly and are fully aware of the terms of your policy though (for example: is everything covered even if your door/window is unlocked, or does it have to be an actual break-in for the policy to pay out?).

Take a fridge if you want, halls don't tend to fuss too much about electricity consumption - I knew someone who ran an extremely high powered light 24/7 in his wardrobe for the whole year for... growing... plants. Never got a mention.

Think carefully about whether you want to take a TV - do you really want to spend your first year at uni sat in front of the TV? Also, remember that SOMEONE will bring a TV, so why be that person and have to always host the daily neighbours session, being left with the dirty tea cups and biscuit crumbs. Let someone else do it.

Above all, bloody well enjoy yourself. Not too much though, I enjoyed myself 1% too much and came out with 1% off a 2.1, which is bloody irritating. Don't do that .

AH

 

Hell no, ask the person running a DC++ hub, a UT server and his PC 24/7 at my uni last year. And if your going away to uni make sure you have lots of spare HDD space as if its anything like mine DC++ will be running. Can you say 1mB/s enough without getting bored?

 

1) Insurance for your posessions.
2) Not TOO much stuff - I have a lot of stuff to take with me and it's a ballache.
3) A big, strong bag for washing - you'll want to do it all at once, so take something large, like one of those blue Ikea bags (my current washer).
4) If you've got a ground floor flat and a laptop, invest in a laptop security chain thingy or be very wary. All too often students get their laptops nicked on ground floors with the window open.

QFT. Can be especially difficult if you're close to your family. I am, and it was very hard for a while (although it's not that far to home, so it wasn't too bad).

Another tip is this - take some kind of food/drink for giving out on the first day to your flatmates, it's a brilliant icebreaker. Beer can be especially popular, if that's your thing.

 

Iwog, you didn't go to coventry did you?

I had a mini fridge the whole time I was at uni, it's a god send, nothing gets nicked! And sarnies on demand , don't get a crappy little in car one though, get a proper one, £100 odd should see you right.

As for the extra hdd space, get something massive and external, that way you can wonder round to your mates, pjnch there stuff, and watch it over there.

Don't take a TV, someone will have one, but you coudl always get a TV card to be less obvious about it.

Tbh you don't watch much telly in your first year in halls, it's only in the final year when you have your own house and really good mates that you sit around/eating/watch tv.

We rented a huge one in the second year which worked well.

Other things to remember, take a crate, offer it freely to your new hall mates when they come in to say hi. Can do the same with tea and coffee but beer is better.

have plenty of multi socket extension leads, and a lava lamp. And, instead of an under sheet for the bed, get a matress protector (not one of the bed wetting ones, the padded things) it irons out all the lumps and bumps unless it is a properly screwed matress, in which case you ask for a new one.

Get a george forman grill, they are a godsend, and you can use them in your room, windows open of course. It is possible to fry and egg on them too if you prop them up flat and wedge the top open enough so it doesn't touch the top of the egg.

Ikea do a great little table that is about £15, just the right size to take the mini fridge off the table, which is good becuase they also do some storage boxes that happened to fit underneath perfectly, and storage is something you will be short of.

Always make sure you do some washing, and don't be a scruffy ****er and leave your sheets on for a month!!!

If there is anything else I'll add it later.

EDIT: Krikkit is on the same wave length lol, tbh get a desktop not a lappy, less likely to be stolen and you don't take them to lectures anyway, ballache to carry around.

Having alot of stuff is a bitch, but its worth it, even if it means taking two cars, one of which being a V70 estate lol

 

Bad idea: people expect free **** from you after that.

Sheets for a month?? I changed mine once a semester XD

 

@mother goose, maybe and i may have been one of the unfortunates who lived in priory J floor 6 and couldn't see the main hub due to the intelligence of CSV who couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. Good times though. And if you're another CSV unfortunate i feel i should know you as i knew most of the people on DC and more of them knew me Was kinda "distinctive" what with the people i hung out with and my own attire.

Like mother goose said "have plenty of multi socket extension leads" its the little things like that you forget, well i do. Also remember coat hangers, some halls may give you them but you'll want more. Basically its all the mundane things you'll forget and then need to go buy in your first couple of weeks.

But most importantly bring you party hat (metaphorically or physically) as the first year is all about living it up and learning how to live on your own. 9 times out of 10 the first year dont count for squat so party as much as you want just remember to pass though.

 

Don't listen to Bindi! The don't expect anything, it's a great way to meet people though, everyone loosens up a bit after a beer or two.

As for the sheets, you filthy creature bindi!

 

ugh you dirty ******!

 

Dude, J Block, 4th floor

When did you graduate?

 

Still going, should be done this year Was a 2005 intake just before everyone else got raped with top up fees

 

Some good flatmates are essential, unfortunately you can't guarantee that in the first year, my lot weren't bad, they just weren't my crowd (i.e. unsociable gits). Don't bother with a TV IMO, licence fee is far too much and I'm sure halls of residence is prime picking for TVL inspectors, there's also some gay rules that if you live in a flat and have a TV in a common area, everyone has to have their own license.

What you take depends on how big your room is really, getting it into the car is the least of your worries, getting it all in your room is the real problem (unless you're like me and got into the brand-new, massive-roomed halls). That year was probably one of my best and worst, the course was brilliant to begin with and was all happy and motivated for it, but halls sucked, glad I'm free of them, it was done as quick as possible as they were behind schedule so the build quality was crap, the boilers kept exploding, setting off the alarms, one week we were woken up every night at 4am by either boilers exploding some nights, and drunken **** heads other nights who obviously didn't have 9-6 weeks.

One thing I will recommend is a NatWest student account, you get a Railcard, which is very handy, and a massive overdraft which comes in handy during the summer if the swarms of GCSE students have stolen all the jobs before you've gotten home. I've also got a student credit card from NatWest which will be used only in an emergency or for purchases that require a credit card. Keep a tenner folded up and hidden somewhere in your wallet, otherwise known as the emergency tenner, it's not for drinks BTW For the railcard you have to have activity in your band account, you can't just leave it with a tenner in there for a year, you have to be putting money in and out of it, if you are gonna get one, you should sort it out ASAP so you can sort out the paperwork for the railcard before the offer expires, I never got mine so I need to have a moan at NatWest about it.

When you're packing to go to halls, obviously pack the essentials first, and then go for any luxuries, try and get a food shops courtesy of your parents if they're taking you up there, after a year of lugging a suitcase up to tescos for my shopping, I have never been so happy to see the boot of a car before. Obviously the essentials is different for each person, but there are a few good things to do that applies to everyone, when you get there, find out how much the washing machines are and take a jar or something with you, and fill it with change for the machines, I've been short on change far too many times up at uni when it came to wash day. As others have said, have a big strong bag for laundry (I used the same suitcase I used for the tesco shopping, one of those wheely ones with the pull out draggy handle). Make sure to register with a doctor too.

As above, the first few months until Christmas are the hardest, it takes a while to figure out your routine and what exactly you need, luckily for me, my home was only a "cheap" 40min train ride away so I could go home on a weekend and grab anything I had forgotten or use my parents if I needed to shuttle anything heavy around

Oh yeah, plates and stuff, you'll need that.

 

Just to pick up the security point a sec - a safe is exessive, but a hollow book or fake food tin is a great idea. You can get them anywhere, and they're good for emergency money/passport (..illicit files on memory cards, a la matrix!)
They're safer too, if someone breaks into a dorm and sees a safe, they'll make a bee-line for it.

 

Thanks for the advice so far guys! I think everyone I know's getting a Natwest account- you get a free webcam as well if you apply online. I'm one of the lucky few who doesn't need to worry too much about debt and overdrafts really; my loan, grant and bursary works out at £7.2k p/a and Currys are transfering me to my local store, so I'll be working as well. The halls I'm going to are catered, so I'll just need a bit of food for weekends really. Based on the advice above I won't bother with a safe, just a little fridge for keeping the beer cool. If any other freshers could post a little list of things they're planning on taking it would be helpful to everyone I hope, I'll probably have it all worked out soon enough.

<A88>

 

Food in catered halls isnt always that great, take some plastic plates and some cutlery for when you cook or have take-aways.

Loo roll is the currency of uni halls lol .

 

Echoing the catered-food-is-crap theme, you'll probably be sick of it before long. The menus are usually terrible and the actual food isn't much better. Most annoying thing about it is that they serve at the most annoying times and if you miss it, it's money down the drain.

 

I think the list of what I took would be about a mile long If you haven't already, ask your parents for some advice on what to take as they usually come up with things you might not think of like say, oven gloves. A good idea is to go round a massive hypermarket if you have one near you, go round every isle looking at everything and think to yourself if you need it, even if you don't actually buy it because you have a spare at home or something, jot it down on a notepad so you remember. It's a lot easier looking at a list (or aisles of a shop) and thinking "yes I need that, no I don't need that" than trying to think of what you need, unfortunately I can't remember everything I brought with me so I can't really make a definitive list, that's why a hypermarket is good, since they usually have everything under the sun. Another good thing to do would be to go into each room of your house (that you have business being in) and opening all the draws and cupboards and writing down all the stuff you think you'll need that you have in your house. Combine the two and you'll most likely get all of the basic items you need, all you need then is the "trick" items that people found useful or thought would already be there. I went round ASDA with my mum and I managed to get pretty much everything I needed.

A couple of items I will say that haven't been mentioned;

Big black marker pen so you can mark your milk and stuff
A washing up bowl, usually a good idea to have one for yourself, depends on how your flat decided to organise the washing up though. I ended up putting mine in a cupboard and hid away all my dirty plates in there until I ran out of stuff to use and did a massive clean up. That was a very bad though, it's best to wash up stuff as you go along, but you'll probably find you stop that after a while and it piles up next to the sink. Don't ever leave stuff to soak in the sink, there's nothing worse (exaggerating slightly) than a flatmate who fills the sink with washing up and leaves it for days.

EDIT: I agree with the others, I much prefer self catered, you can cook whatever you want, whenever you want, I quite enjoy cooking anyway. You should take a couple of bottles of herbs with you too, a sprinkle of oregano can turn a nasty £1 pizza into quite a nice pizza.