<p>The student store sells school supplies, not dorm room necessities, and it’s a little pricey.</p>
<p>Personally, I didn’t use a water filter. The water fountain in the Units didn’t taste great, but it wasn’t that bad, either. It was still better than that nasty eco-bottled **** Arrowhead makes nowadays.</p>
<p>A desk lamp is an absolute must if you plan on doing any work in your room at all in the evenings. So yes, you need one. Lighting inside the rooms is pretty dim in the Units, even if you move your desk directly under the in-room lamp, which you probably won’t.</p>
<p>First semester I didn’t bring a printer. I used printing pages at the ASC, which is a pretty good deal - $5 for 250 pages, I believe. You can also get 250 free printing pages a semester at the OCF in Eshleman Hall, if you’re willing to walk all the way over there. In general, if you’re a finishes-papers-two-minutes-after-they’re-due kind of guy, bringing your own printer is probably wiser because the ASC is not open 24/7. Second semester I brought my own printer just in case, although I barely used it since I had leftover pages from the ASC. My roommate, however, was a procrastinator to the highest degree, and used my printer all the time. Not bringing a printer may motivate you to not procrastinate so much on those papers and lab reports, since you’ll have to plan beforehand in order to finish it so you can print it out at the ASC while it’s open.</p>
<p>If you have a ton of clothes, bring extra hangers or borrow from your roommate(s). A fridge is very useful. And bring a shower caddy and shower shoes (unless you like showering barefoot in the dorm bathrooms…). </p>
<p>Bring waterproof shoes. If you’re from SoCal, Berkeley will seem like Portland or Seattle to you. But it really doesn’t rain excessively…</p>
<p>That’s all I can think of. You’ll get by… And if not, there’s a Walgreens next to campus and a Target in Albany that you can get to by bus.</p>