<p>Plastic or paper cups. Energy drinks are drunk right from the can.</p>
<p>Swiss Army Knife?? All the guys in the family have at least one and love them dearly…except S. No need till now, as he certainly couldn’t have it in HS. I haven’t seen anything on S’ college website saying its not allowed. Any thoughts from others with more experience?</p>
<p>chihuahua…had to laugh! D1 probably brought at least 20 sports bras but she plays a college sport and wears at least 2 per practice and then school launders them. She wears them all along with two pairs of cleats, two types of running shoes, walking shoes, multiple pairs of colored flip flops, 2 pairs of Uggs, and regular athletic shoes. She has winter ski jacket, multiple fleece jackets and rain gear for outdoor practices. Her closet is always stuffed but she uses everything. As everyone says…know your kid!</p>
<p>Great thread–keep them coming!</p>
<p>Do not bring your HS yearbooks - they are irreplaceable.</p>
<p>Regarding passports and SS cards to fulfill work requirements: US law requires that an employee complete an I9 Employment Eligibility Verification form, within three days of starting work. Part of that form is producing ORIGINAL documents for the employer to review. Most often, employees produce a passport, or a drivers license AND a social security card. However, there is a whole list of documents that fulfill the requirements for verification, and employee is permitted to produce whatever documentation they wish, as long as they are on the list. As BunsenBurners link points out, the employer can’t pick which documents they’ll accept, the employee gets to do that. </p>
<p>Here’s a link to the .pdf of the current I9 form, which lists acceptable documentation on page 4. The employee either has to produce one document from column A, or one from column B AND one from column C. </p>
<p>I’m making a note for my D right now, I honestly hadn’t thought about her having to fulfill the I9 requirements until you all brought it up, so thanks for the reminder.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/I-9.pdf[/url]”>http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/I-9.pdf</a></p>
<p>chihuahua-no partridge in a pear tree?!?!</p>
<p>BunsenBurner-one of my good friends took her senior yearbook with you, only to have her roommate spill coffee on it. :(</p>
<p>Mine will stay safely tucked away in my closet at home.</p>
<p>This is a great thread. :)</p>
<p>A fan - either a window fan or a free-standing fan. This is essential - even in the norteast and midwest. It’s still very warm when they get there in August and warm when they leave in May.</p>
<p>Sorry - I read the thread wrong - I thought it was things you should pack for college!</p>
<p>I’m sure this differs both by kid and college, but think carefully about bringing a bike. My D was determined to have one as a freshman last year, but we couldn’t manage it during move in, and offered to bring it down in a couple of weeks (about 2.5 hour trip). By then she told us not to bother. A friend of hers from HS brought one and hardly ever used it.</p>
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<p>My roommate once used mine to make two full boxes of couscous. She did not realize that couscous expands when cooked. All available bowls were used for couscous overflow.</p>
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<p>The post office just lost all my brother’s yearbooks, plus $1500 of textbooks (insured, but still), as he shipped them home from college. I liked having mine at school, but I went to college four hours from home by car. Likelihood of them getting stolen was low, but damaged or lost-in-the-mail is high, and is heartbreaking. Bring your yearbook at your own risk.</p>
<p>A good piece of advice about traveling works here. </p>
<p>Don’t bring anything that is irreplaceable! Don’t bring heirlooms, very sentimental items, photo albums (if you don’t keep scanned copies or old negatives separate) and the like. This sort of stuff is safer at home.</p>
<p>Also, this is seldom mentioned, don’t bring perfumes or colognes or scented candles or incense, etc etc</p>
<p>…unless, of course, you want to make a roommate crazy!</p>
<p>I would think driver’s license and social security card would be plenty to keep on hand for emplyment purposes as both are more easily replaceable if lost or stolen than passport or birth certificate according to I9 standards. Also military IDs count as acceptable picture IDs if anyone is a dependent in place of a driver’s license.</p>
<p>Concerning a comfy chair, the early makings of my chronic back pain came from sitting in uncomfortable desk chairs in college in dorm rooms. I never studied in the library (was a late night studier between the hours of 10 pm and 4 am, so studied when roomies were asleep). Liked to take a nap in the bean bag in the afternoon before dinner and then good to go.</p>
<p>In my current professional life as an OT, I can tell you that the position/environment that someone prefers to study in affects their retention of information and it is highly individualized. I’ve seen it in classrooms over and over again.</p>
<p>If your child likes to lie on their floor on their bellies and study, if they like the radio blasting, tv on, and background noise while they are studying or sleeping, they will try to recreate that environment at school as well. </p>
<p>Some people absolutely CANNOT study in the library because they find it TOO quiet. For me, it was always the humming of the lights and the smell of the air conditioning…couldn’t deal, I could, however, go there to sleep at times because that all was the equivalent of white noise.</p>
<p>I had friends that spent all Sunday in the library starting at 7 am, I personally liked to stay up late on Saturdays, sleep in, watch NFL football, and then start studying around 5 or 6 pm in prep for the week to come. Knowing how to power relax can be just as important as power studying. </p>
<p>Some people like to lie on their beds and study, for others the bed equals sleep. Some people like to be semi-reclined, other people can read while riding on a bus or running on a treadmill, for others that makes them nauseated or sick. </p>
<p>Knowing your student but more particularly, that your students knows themselves will matter the most. Their awareness of their own habits and preferences about studying times, places, environments, will help them more than any piece of equipment or furniture ever will.</p>
<p>Isn’t it great that we are all such individuals? Gotta love it
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<p>Library books- I returned several for son the end of freshman year to help him get going with the packing, I noticed a lot of fiction, yes, colleges do have collections beyond scholarly. Son has used his desktop computer both years, got an XBox sent to his dorm as a birthday present (Halo…). Last year he took hangers from the hall closet on one trip home, ignoring the ones bought for him and hanging in his closet after home first year (kid, know thy stuff…). He lofted last year so underbed storage box went unused after transporting stuff (he was going to abandon it at school until I rescued it at the last minute, why he didn’t just put stuff in it to bring home…). Son never wanted a printer- his first roommate said he could use his (ha) then he had free pages via comp sci classes, and the cost of doing it via campus sources was cheaper than the ink and paper he said. </p>
<p>Regarding unpacking- make sure your child is at least aware of what is being packed. I put all the stuff for son’s dorm (except the things in his room/bathroom) in the dining room, mostly on the table as I purchased it or moved it from other places. He then had time to approve, remove stuff from the piles. The bedding, laundry supplies… were all there for days to even weeks and mainly ignored. This also gives you an idea of how much stuff there is before you are trying to fit it all in the car on move in day.</p>
<p>This might sound odd, but don’t take a cloth bathroom bag. My aunt got me this really nice travel bathroom bag, but the college bathrooms are always wet so it was ruined the first week. My other tip is: bring as little as possible. The dorm rooms are tiny and the more you bring, the more you will be annoyed with the small space.</p>
<p>I just hope some of the parents on the thread <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/508985-moving-2-boys-same-weekend-ideas-needed.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/508985-moving-2-boys-same-weekend-ideas-needed.html</a> read this thread. Some were advocating renting U Hauls to take stuff to school with.</p>
<p>My S brought a printer and we brought it home at Xmas—it took up alot of space and he never used it. There were network printers available all over campus. In talking with recent college grads in my office, they concur–a printer is a waste of $ and space</p>
<p>I don’t think I initially brought anything that I didn’t need at some point, other than some extra T-shirts. You will likely get a lot of college T-shirts once you get to school, most of them free or very cheap. I had several from my fraternity, SGA, swim team, etc. </p>
<p>I did bring stuff back after visits home that I probably wouldn’t advocate bringing. Some random video games, a cornhole set, and more clothes are included in that. The cornhole only came in handy when I used it as a bean bag toss for a fundraiser at a Relay for Life booth I set up.</p>
<p>On the subject of video games, unless you don’t have self-control, it really doesn’t double as the procrastination tool that some make it out to be. Facebook was more of the enemy for me, even though I had an Xbox 360 complete with Halo, GTA IV, Call of Duty, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Madden, and then an N64 with a dozen or so games, and a Wii with a few games on that. The Wii was touched the least, N64 was only played by people who hadn’t played video games since it came out and preferred Mario Kart or Mario Party, and the Xbox was played more by everyone in my hall than it was me or my roommate. I did play a lot of Guitar Hero first semester, but only because I had more time than I did second semester and much more than I did in high school.</p>
<p>Momof2sons- A printer came very much in handy for me. Especially at times where I would be running late to a class and didn’t have time to run by the library, or when I wanted to print out color pages for SGA flyers or a fraternity book I had to put together.</p>
<p>Don’t bring weapons or other dangerous equipment, such as chainsaws.</p>