What you absolutely need (and don’t need) for your freshman dorm room

5 things you’ll want to buy before you move into your dorm room in the fall. And 4 things you can leave on the store shelves

BY HALEY ZIMMERMAN Special to The Eagle

Shopping for your freshman dorm room carries a lot of emotional weight: you’re setting off into the unknown, with only what you can fit into your suitcases or cardboard boxes. This time of year, as high school graduates prepare to move on to their next phase of education, stores will inundate students with “must haves” for dorm-room life. Some of these things are absolutely essential, or will at least make the little indignities of dorm life a little more bearable. Some of it will be completely useless. Here are five things you need for your freshman dorm room—and four things you definitely don’t.

What You Need

A mattress topper

There’s no way around it — you definitely need a mattress topper. Dorm beds are notoriously uncomfortable, and there’s no reason to sacrifice the quality of your sleep. That said, something you don’t need is to spend over $60 on this recommendation. An inexpensive egg-crate or memory foam topper will serve you almost as well as the multilayer, $300-range versions. Sleep well at night knowing your bed is comfortable and your financial decisions are sound.

Fan

This is, maybe surprisingly, a nearly climate-independent recommendation. Live somewhere hot? Get a fan. Live somewhere cold? Still get a fan, probably. Even on cold-weather campuses, the first weeks of fall semester will almost always be warm, and dorms are notoriously stuffy. You’ll probably use your fan after that too, to air out your room or blow a smell out an open window. You probably don’t need one if you’ll be living in an air-conditioned building, or if the weather is truly so cold you won’t want to be any cooler those last weeks of August and first of September.

Detergent pods

A jug of laundry detergent seems like a natural purchase for a future dorm resident, but that jug is going to have to travel up and down untold flights of stairs to get to a basement laundry room. Much easier is a container of Tide Pods or other detergent packs, which can be carried individually, and much more easily.

Power strip

Half the outlets in my freshman dorm were completely inaccessible, stuck behind a bolted-down bed or tightly wedged-in fridge. You’ll be surprised at the spider’s web of chargers, cables and cords that end up in your dorm; essential for keeping them all organized and plugged in is a power strip. This, like the Tide Pods, is the kind of thing you overlook until you’re moving in and desperately need to charge your phone. Make sure to look for a power strip with a built-in surge protector to keep your electronics safe from an accidental frying.

Bedside shelf or caddy

This one will only be relevant to some readers, but to those readers it will be essential. If you are going to be sleeping on a top bunk or have a lofted bed, you need to buy a bedside caddy or small bedside shelf. It’s an easy fix to save yourself from groping around in the dark for your glasses, or dropping your phone from an elevated bed. Your future, 2 a.m. self will thank you for setting up your bedside correctly when you’re moving in.

THINGS YOU DON’T NEED Extra sheets

If you buy extra sheets you will most likely just procrastinate your laundry even longer, and then you’ll have to wash two sets of dirty sheets. Rare individuals will overcome this; if you are one of them, go forth and buy two sets. The rest of us will be just fine with just one.

Iron and ironing board

Ironing boards and dorm rooms have a fundamental incompatibility: the former is very large and the latter is very small. Instead of a bulky ironing setup, bring a small portable steamer if you think you’ll need to fix wrinkled clothes.

Electric kettle

This is a bit of a scalding hot take — pun intended — but you don’t really need an electric kettle in college. To start with, they’re banned in many dorms. They’re also too limited in function: a mi- crowave can boil water for ramen, tea and what-have-you, and can also reheat food.

Printer

Printers are the bane of human existence. They are always broken, or jammed, or in need of ink; do not invite this suffering onto yourself by buying one. Post-COVID, nearly all submissions are digital, and if you need to print, you can do that at your campus library.