An electric kettle if she doesn’t like coffee- they boil in under a minute and can be a great way to get a quick buzz for that late-night paper.
For the really tall boys, regular twins are pretty constrictive. It just sucks that everyone else can’t opt out.
Dorm rooms are TINY. Don’t think “what would be neat to have?”, think “what can she not live without?”. There is a lot to be said for being very minimal the first semester and plan to do some serious shopping that first Christmas after she’s figured out the needs of her new life.
What is this. the 1950’s?? First off, she’s a girl (sexist though it may be, I don’t see many women puffing on a pipe). Secondly, 21st century dorms don’t generally allow smoking.
Rolling papers, on the other hand…but the OP is the parent, so…nahhh.
[OKay, on preview, this is probably a woosh, and I’m overreacting, but I wanted to post something to this thread, and everybody else already covered my ideas about lots of towels and a shower caddy]
FYI, they make automatic turn-off coffeemakers. Mine has been a lifesaver. Just make sure to save the packaging/directions/whatever that prove that it’s automatic shut-off.
Also, I suggest getting some plastic drawers for her along these lines. She can keep them in her closet and keep underwear and such in them. When I moved into my first dorm room, we only had one dresser that we had to share, and that wasn’t nearly enough room.
I’m going to second (or third, or whatever) the suggestion about a simple toolset! I was the only one on my floor with a hammer and screwdrivers. Tons of people borrowed them the first and last weeks of the year to put stuff up or tear it down. Thank god my parents had the good sense to get me ones with gaudy fluorescent-colored handles and made me mark my initials with permanent marker on them- they would’ve walked off otherwise. (Word gets around fast about who has what useful item in a dorm!)
It’s true that a lot of the appliances (microwaves, toasters, etc) aren’t allowed, but as I discovered while living in the dorms last year, those things make eating decently sooo much easier (especially for a picky person like me). If she were to keep a toaster in the sink cabinet and only take it out when using it, the RA probably won’t find it. Also, they won’t file a police report against the things you have; the worst I would expect is being told that it has to be removed from the dorm room.
Also, laptops are incredibly useful, because there is so much work to be done online (including tests sometimes), and often a dorm room is not the best place to do it. My roommate last year had a tendency for blasting NSync until at least 10pm, and there was lots of slamming and yelling coming from the next dorm over; often I needed to go to the lounge or the student center to find a place quiet enough to concentrate.
ETA: Also indispensable? Toothbrush holders.
And more than one toothbrush. Students who live on-campus don’t generally get into the habit of needing to go to grocery stores or pharmacies, so it becomes a PITA to replace things like tampons and toothbrushes. Having a decent stock of both will make her life easier. Same with any “pharmacy” type things; band-aids, kleenex, dental floss, hair elastics, etc.
The plastic drawers are a good idea; they come in a million different sizes and configurations, so getting one to store bathroom things, underwear and socks, tampons and pads, etc is a really good idea. Dorm rooms are often small, but many have space for “milk crate” storage which would be the perfect size for those drawers.
Some universities have beds set up in a way that they have under-the-bed storage access; either because the bed is raised up off the floor, or there are drawers or, like my husband’s, the mattress could be raised up for sitting on and easy access to the floor underneath could be had. Once she’s settled in, take her on a shopping spree at IKEA; there are a million items that can make living in a compact space bearable, including containers and drawer combinations for under-the-bed storage.
In her tiny tool kit, make sure there’s a measuring tape. Very useful when planning those IKEA trips!
And that blue sticky gunk stuff for putting posters/pictures up on walls. Pretty much every university forbids students from making holes in the walls of their rooms, so this stuff will let her decorate without having to pay crazy repair bills later on.
When I went to school I wish I had brought a small set of dishes. Nothing fancy, just like a dollar store ceramic bow, plate and mug and some metal silverware. Also a cheap set of measuring cups. It’s hard to make quick dorm meals when you have nothing to measure the water with and nothing to put the meal in. I had to buy my own after getting tired to gues-timating every time.
Other than that a good bathrobe and slippers are also nice, both for going between the showers and for lounging around the dorm. If she’s a beauty-conscious girl maybe a small lightweight hairdryer as well. I know all the girls in my dorm had their own.
Also, I found one of those big office style desk calenders was invaluable. I had all my class times, locations, club meeting times, special events, etc. all on the big calender. It helps a kid to start organizing their time when mom’s not around to remind them.
Laptops are also useful in class, especially if there’s a wireless connection available. I often referenced Wikipedia or other websites into my notes because the illustration was helpful to me. Also, some professors asked me to do Google searches to confirm information.
Robin
Actually, re the whole laptop thing, the school (University of Illinois if anyone’s interested)wants you to have one to the point where they are having a computer night where you and your freshman go, tell them your major, and they sell you one set up with all the software you’re likely to need. My DH will be handling this one, as I know zippo about migs and megs and gbs and whatever. :rolleyes:
As someone in her first year of university, I’ve got to say my mum was the greatest at getting all the little things I would need. I was fully prepared with shopping lists to get all my stuff independently, so coming home one day to have it mostly done for me was very sweet and very unexpected. You WILL be appreciated.
As to what to get, I don’t know how much UK unis differ, but the big one was a laptop. I love my laptop, its indispensable and it will make your daughter’s life a thousand times easier. Every bedroom here has a socket to plug into the internet, or there is wireless across campus if you can get it. Doing your work in your room at your leisure is way better than trekking to the computer room or the library in the rain, where you might have to wait for a computer. And if you are up at 2am doing an essay due in first thing the next day (which WILL happen) you’ve got all the coffee and peace and quiet you need right there. Of all the times I speak to my parents 99% of them is via googlechat or email; we can have nice long conversations whenever without it costing anything. Also good for playing music and watching dvds in your room because the cinema ticket and the bus there is your entire daily budget (cinemas are EXPENSIVE here). She will love you for this. Do it if you can afford it.
Apart from that, basically everything that is not a regular purchase (like food) will help. Student budgets are pretty small if like me you’re paying for everything yourself. All the little things, hangers, crockery & cutlery, a saucepan, a frying pan, kitchen knives, chopping board, a big fluffy towel. Headache tablets. Cold and flu medicine. The biggest pack of toilet rolls you can find. Loads of tampons etc. as these are quite expensive. They don’t like us to put photos and pictures up on the walls so we have massive pin-boards but everyone forgets drawing pins. A washing bag for dirty clothes is essential if you don’t want the room to be a bombsite and have to walk to a different building to do laundry - bought that one myself after one week. Bin liners. An extension lead, maybe two (I have MANY things that need plugging in). Mugs and pint glasses. A thermos flask is amazing for taking tea/coffee around with you so you don’t have to buy it from a cafe. Pads of paper to take notes in lectures. A cookbook like this one. I could cook fairly well already, but I found I wanted some new, more-exotic-but-still-cheap meals. Having said that, lots and lots of dried pasta, hopefully all weird shapes to keep life interesting. If you’re feeling extra generous, there are lots of one-off expenses in the first week that would make a nice present. Two days in and I had spent £90 on textbooks (dunno how much that is, bout 180 USD?). I paid for it myself of course but I took the liberty of grumbling very loudly.
Not essential, but of the things I found I didn’t have but wanted most were things to make my room feel less like a dorm and more like home. She will spend a lot of time there, and it’s not nice to wake up in a room that doesn’t feel like YOURS. I went out and bought pretty throws to cover up the cheap nasty fabric on the chairs, a rug to cover up the cheap ugly carpet and some picture frames. I’m a girl like that though, she might not be the type to mind about silly things like this. However if she does, the rug makes the most difference to the general feeling of the room. If it was me I would take her shopping and let her pick one out. Due to um, differences in taste my mum would probably pick something even uglier than the carpet, and while by no means implying you would do the same ;), I would still let her do the choosing.
Hope that helps!
I wish I had a fridge 
I’d say a laptop computer is essential. I don’t know how students manage without one nowadays, or if they even can. Compared to the cost of college, the cost of a usable laptop is a negligible addition. A decent one can be had for six or seven hundred. Since laptops typically ship with minimum RAM to boot up and run all the bloatware they come with, it’s usually worth it to spend an additional thirty or fifty bucks to get a bigger memory card. I just replaced my .5G card with a full gig one that cost about $35, and I’m thrilled with the improvement in performance. About 15 years ago I paid $200 to double the memory on a Toshiba notebook I owned then, and that probably only got me another 500K of memory.
Oxford Shorter Dictionary, if she is any way serious about words.
A few more things for her basic tool kit:
Cordless screwdriver - you can get a little B&D one that takes 4-AA batteries for about $10.
I’ve sent a few of these off to school with various students.
Eyeglasses repair kit - even if she doesn’t wear glasses, these little kits with 3 teeny-tiny
screwdrivers, a magnifying glass and anti-static cloth have many
uses when dealing with laptops, cell phones, i-pods, etc when Dad
or Mom aren’t around to fix stuff.
Jumper cables - if she takes a car to college, these are a must, for obvious reasons. Make
sure she knows how to use them. Other things to have for the car would
be fuses, a basic auto tool kit, electrical tape and a roadside assistance
card. And make sure that she how to change a tire, if she
doesn’t already.
My son needs a laptop, as one of his classes has homework assignments that are done entirely online. A lot of teachers are moving to online communication…my daughter, still in high school, has to have a laptop and an hour’s worth of English vocabulary done on a website each week. She also receives extra credit assignments via e-mail, and IMs her French teacher in French on occasion.
Times are a-changing, people.
Allowed or not I had a microwave, fridge, toaster oven, single electric burner, coffee maker and espresso machine. Quality of life was a lot better when I could get up and make myself a bagel and a cup of coffee without having to get dressed and trudge down cardiac hill in the middle of winter on a Saturday.
I think pretty much everyone had the dreaded unallowed electrical appliances. They gave us a song and dance about the wiring, but there was no rule against hair dryers. If my 1500 Watt hair dryer can run on the wiring in the building, so can my 1500 Watt microwave. Probably not on the same circuit at the same time, but really what’s the difference electrically between 1500 Watts of hair dryer for 20 minutes and 1500 Watts of microwave for 2 minutes? The hair dryer is using more power. The RAs gave big speeches about it, but never really did anything about it. I avoided letting them in my room, and all was well.
It’s important to have your own computer. Yes, the university probably charges some outrageous computer lab fee, but good luck trying to actually find a computer to use during midterms and finals. There are never enough, they are often virus infected, and nothing is more fun than being almost done with your paper when someone kicks out the power plug for the table, particuarly if you are in a lab where the auto-recovery is saved to a temp drive that gets pruned every reboot.
It’s interesting to hear about the different setups at different colleges. Each hall in our dorms had a kitchenette with a sink and microwave. We also had a tunnel system of stores, laundry rooms, an arcade and vending machines under the dorms. You didn’t have to go outside unless you had to go to class or the library. It was a great way to avoid the winter weather.
We also had quarterly inspections where the RAs went into every room and looked for contraband. Which of course didn’t mean people didn’t have banned things. You just had to stash them in someone else’s room for awhile.
Yeah at my school RAs did random room checks looking for unauthorized stuff - appliances other than fridges/microwaves, candles, incense, alcohol out in the open. They would not open drawers or closet doors though without your consent - but whatever was out in the open you could get busted for. Unless your kids is gonna be living in some huge palace of a dorm room, all that other crap will just be too much anyway. Colleges seem to me most worried about fire hazards - which is why things like hot plates and whatnot were not allowed. Also why no candles were allowed.
Tons of kids have survived college dining hall life, it’s not a big deal. If its the kind of school where freshmen are required to live on campus and older kids still do too, then dining halls are like a way of life. Dinner was a social thing, and the food is not that bad. I even worked at one for a semester. I say don’t bother at first with trying to set up your daughter with kitchen stuff. Wait awhile until she figures out campus life to see whether she will be trying to cook in her room, and if her roommate won’t care. Granola bars and pop tarts and popcorn are one thing, but measuring cups and dish sets and stuff might be going overboard at first. You always end up bringing way too much crap your freshman year and learn sophomore year to leave some of it at home. I never knew anyone who cooked more than Ramen in their rooms, and you just need one bowl and one spoon for that.
Also, laptop is pretty much required to survive. Lots of schools now use programs like Blackboard, if anyone is familiar, where professors post syllabi, assignments, send emails and other important stuff that students need to access regularly. Use the computer lab for printing. I know my college offered student discounts on computers, and Apple gives you about $100 off laptops and stuff.