The Well-Equipped Student
Preparing a college student for campus life takes a lot of tech—and money. Here’s what you need and what you need to know.
Talk to parents of college-age kids and they’ll likely lament the high cost of higher education as they watch their bank accounts getting drained by tuition, room and board, books and incidentals. But most parents also drop a significant chunk of change just preparing their offspring for life on campus. According to the National Retail Foundation (NRF), back-to-school shopping is second only to Christmas as the biggest-selling season. In its fourth-annual Back-to-College Consumer Intention and Action Survey in 2006, the NRF found that some $36.6 billion was spent to outfit college-bound kids with everything from clothes to calculators. That’s a 6.3 percent increase from the previous year, and double what parents of K-12 students shelled out before the school bell rang.
The largest portion of that cash, some $10.46 billion, was spent on electronics alone, which is not surprising given the fact that today’s college students grew up in the Internet Age. “When it comes to shopping for college items, electronics are usually at the top of the list,” observes NRF President and CEO Tracy Mullin. “Somewhere along the line, tech gadgets went from fun indulgences to important necessities.”
Besides essentials such as computers and alarm clocks, today’s college students are heading to campus with a gaggle of gadgets: mobile phones, portable music and video players, computer speakers, headphones, even flat-screen TVs. To find out what the well-equipped freshman will need this fall, we talked with several upper classmen and their parents on how to best prepare your progeny for college.
Computer Studies
A computer is the single largest back-to-school expenditure for most college students, if they don’t already own one. Laptops are generally preferred over desktops so that students can carry a computer to class, to the library or anywhere else on campus. “I had friends who brought desktops to school and they always had to go the library when they weren’t in the dorm and needed to use a computer on campus,” says Kerstin Ulf, a junior majoring in advertising at University of Colorado at Boulder. “All I have to do is pop open my laptop and I can use it anywhere.”
Though Ulf feels that a laptop is the way to go, she cautioned against buying one with too large of a screen. “It can be a pain since it may not fit into your backpack,” she adds. “I think it’s much more convenient to have a smaller screen. I have friends with laptops with large screens and they end up bringing two bags—a computer bag for the laptop and a backpack for their books.”The size of the screen also depends on how the computer will be used. Jamie Dillon of Waitsfield, Vermont, will be a freshman at Western Washington University in Bellingham this fall. “He’ll definitely need a computer because he’s majoring in journalism,” says Jamie’s mom, Sue, who plans to shop for a computer that he can bring to school. But Jamie is also an aspiring photographer and videographer. “He wants the biggest screen possible so he can edit photos and video,” Sue adds.
Not Just for Homework
Most college students use a computer for much more than just for school work. It often serves as the main source of entertainment. “Jamie watches TV and video almost exclusively on the computer,” adds Sue. Because of this, TVs are less of a must-have item for the YouTube generation. “We bought my oldest son a TV when he first went to school but he never used it,” says Paul DiComo of Baltimore, whose youngest son Michael is a junior at Virginia Commonwealth University and whose oldest son Gregory graduated from the College of William and Mary. “When he came home his first summer he brought it back,” DiComo adds.
But Kerstin Ulf countered that having a TV in her dorm room made it a social gathering place, and she points out that many college dorms are already wired for cable. Sandy Holmes of Los Angeles said that someone on her son Matthew’s floor at University of Denver even had a 50-inch flat-panel monitor in his dorm room. But that’s probably an extravagance most parents and kids can leave off their shopping lists.
College students also house most of their music on their computers or on a portable player these days, so a good set of computer speakers or a dock for a portable is important. “Music is such a part of your identity at college and it makes your dorm room feel more like home,” says Ulf. “iPod speakers are a big thing, and it seems that everyone has an iPod dock.”
Paul DiComo also made sure that his sons each had a good pair of headphones. “When you’re sharing a dorm and your roommate is studying or sleeping, you can still listen to music or watch video with headphones,” he says.
