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College Questions. - Tay - 2011-03-21
Ok so since I've basically raised my self my entire high school life, and I'll be the first in my family to go to college, I know nothing of what it is like. I come to you, SouthPerry, to answer my questions regarding going to college, university to be specific. A little info on my self, I'm going to the Univesity of Hawaiii @ Manoa and will be pursuing a major in Korean or Chinese and hope to get study abroad my last two years and then go into teaching ESL or something in that field. Not worth the huge amount of debt I'll be in, but I've got one life so I'll live it.
1 - How did college move in work for you? The process I assume I'm going to follow is to fly there a day before move in, try to buy all the college supplies that aren't huge on the mainland, then move in. My mother said she'll try to go with me, but money is an issue with that extra plane ticket.
2 - When it comes to laptops, what the pineapple do I need to be looking for? I will be getting a new one, and I want to make sure it can handle my koreagames, but what should I look into for school work?
3 - I've heard that first year will be just like high school, full of nothing but core classes. Does this mean I can't take a language? I know that my Uni has it's own list of requirements for graduation and moving up in rank but aside from that what have you had to do?
4 - Living with a room mate, what is it like? I am so blessed that my Uni has a service for LGBT students to help get them situated where as they aren't placed with homophobic/problematic room mates but I haven't lived with someone for the past three years. My father does come home, but we don't interact. I prefer to be alone, is it wrong that I want to try and get a single dorm room?
5 - Using the pineappleing bathroom, and taking a god damn shower. This is what I worry the most about, I'm like a teenage girl when it comes to my body. I'm so insecure. I assume I'll probably have to use a public shower, but how does one cope with that? I generally have stomach issues with anything I eat, and therefore find myself best friends with the toilet late at night, should I try and request a dorm with a private restroom?
6 - Having a job on campus, should I try for it? I'm going to need to get all the money I can take, be it from grants/scholarships/loans. A job would make things better, and give me some spending money however is it really worth it?
I can't really think of any more right now, and I know these questions are typical but I've got no one to turn to. I've only got a little more than three months to go until I'm done with High School. I'm so scared to go to college, to grow up, to be in so much debt. But at the same time, I'm ready to get away.
College Questions. - 2147483647 - 2011-03-21
Tay Wrote:1 - How did college move in work for you? The process I assume I'm going to follow is to fly there a day before move in, try to buy all the college supplies that aren't huge on the mainland, then move in. My mother said she'll try to go with me, but money is an issue with that extra plane ticket.
My family started purchasing everything a month early. I was still buying supplies the final days. We drove, since flying just can't accommodate for all the things I brought with me.
A partial list of what you should bring
Not really much to move-in. You move... in. *facepalm*Tay Wrote:2 - When it comes to laptops, what the pineapple do I need to be looking for? I will be getting a new one, and I want to make sure it can handle my koreagames, but what should I look into for school work?
Anything that can handle games can also handle schoolwork. The most you'll be using for school is a solid internet connection and Microsoft Office (or Open Office). The thing is: the school websites are usually poorly coded, so they leech a lot of a computer's memory. You'd want to get something that can handle the immense memory leeching. Try to get an Intel i-5 or i-7 processor. Graphics cards don't really matter in my opinion; my laptop doesn't have a graphics card and it handles MapleStory just fine.
Tay Wrote:3 - I've heard that first year will be just like high school, full of nothing but core classes. Does this mean I can't take a language? I know that my Uni has it's own list of requirements for graduation and moving up in rank but aside from that what have you had to do?
Look this up yourself. It varies from university to university. Think of university as a quest chain in MapleStory. There are some quests that unlock others, some that do nothing, some that are interesting, others not as much.
It helps to plan out your four year schedule before you even step into university. You need to do this without the help of a counselor, because the counselors don't know pomegranate. Try to obtain a course catalog. Open an excel spreadsheet. Copy and paste all the classes that you need to take into the excel spreadsheet, and start rearranging them based on when you need to take certain classes by. The process should about four hours, but you'll be a lot better off if you do this.
Tay Wrote:4 - Living with a room mate, what is it like? I am so blessed that my Uni has a service for LGBT students to help get them situated where as they aren't placed with homophobic/problematic room mates but I haven't lived with someone for the past three years. My father does come home, but we don't interact. I prefer to be alone, is it wrong that I want to try and get a single dorm room?
I live alone. My suitemates like to blast loud "music" (if you can even call it that). The RAs don't do anything. If you like to study seriously, hit the coffee shop or the library.
Tay Wrote:5 - Using the pineappleing bathroom, and taking a god damn shower. This is what I worry the most about, I'm like a teenage girl when it comes to my body. I'm so insecure. I assume I'll probably have to use a public shower, but how does one cope with that? I generally have stomach issues with anything I eat, and therefore find myself best friends with the toilet late at night, should I try and request a dorm with a private restroom?
Nobody is going to care about what you look like. I'm sure your dorm provides shower curtains. If you don't want to feel exposed, don't walk around naked.
Tay Wrote:6 - Having a job on campus, should I try for it? I'm going to need to get all the money I can take, be it from grants/scholarships/loans. A job would make things better, and give me some spending money however is it really worth it?
This is for you to decide. Only do it if you can handle it, because a job just takes your time away, and your grades will drop.
College Questions. - OB3LISK - 2011-03-21
1. I didn't move in so lol.
2. Get a labtop with microsoft office and you're set. Personally I don't mix up games with my school labtop since I need it everywhere for four years. So I never DLed MS on it although it would have been nice too.
3. You can take whatever you want, just call the school and ask to speak to the person who made your schedule. Language IS a core.
4. Not sure. I had to do an orientation and I had to spend the night at my school, and my roommates were lame, and crazy. Don't bother with single room, roommate will be fun.
5. It shouldn't be a public shower? Who cares, just make it quick and you'll be fine.
6. You can try to take a job but if it interferes with your schoolwork, eh.
College Questions. - madanthony - 2011-03-21
Tay Wrote:1 - How did college move in work for you? The process I assume I'm going to follow is to fly there a day before move in, try to buy all the college supplies that aren't huge on the mainland, then move in. My mother said she'll try to go with me, but money is an issue with that extra plane ticket.If you're moving in a day early, it should be incredibly relaxed and easy. Freshman year I moved in on the same day as every other freshman and it was a little zoo-like. Well-organized and smooth-flowing, but there was a lot of hubbub. Last year and this year I moved in 1-2 weeks in advance for my cafeteria job's annual supervisor training stuff and being on campus during breaks are the most relaxing few days I've ever had. If there are any big box marts around, quite a few in my area do "midnight madness" events with good sales on just about everything a few days after move-in. Don't worry if you forget anything simple. You might not even need as much stuff as you think. I didn't bother bringing a microwave with me this year since I don't snack in my room or have leftovers. I just eat in the caf.
Quote:2 - When it comes to laptops, what the pineapple do I need to be looking for? I will be getting a new one, and I want to make sure it can handle my koreagames, but what should I look into for school work?If it can handle your koreagames, it'll handle whatever else you want. Don't get a huge one. 14 or 15" is good. My laptop is this size and it puts a good heft in my backpack. 17" is a bad idea. Not that I take my laptop with me too often. Michigan State has computer labs everywhere and the engineering lab's computers are overflowing with all the specialized software I need to use for my classes. I don't even bother doing homework in my room anymore, I just do it all in a lab. Less distracting and people in my classes are usually bumming around too so I can get questions answered. Look for a laptop that fits your personal entertainment needs and that should exceed your academic needs. Tablets are kinda cool and if you really, really don't want to handwrite notes, take a look at a decent one. All the professors in engineering have a tablet and most of them do their lecture notes on that instead of a chalkboard. Not a necessity - I still like to handwrite my notes. Michigan State has a computer store with student deals on software ($65 for the full Office suite, etc) and computers (not quite as good a deal) and the engineering college also has a MSDNAA account, so look into that before you splurge full price on software. If you have any specific programs you need, we can probably point you toward good, free alternatives.
Quote:3 - I've heard that first year will be just like high school, full of nothing but core classes. Does this mean I can't take a language? I know that my Uni has it's own list of requirements for graduation and moving up in rank but aside from that what have you had to do?You can absolutely take a language. Just probably not any with a prereq. And it may cover a lot of what you learned in high school. My freshman year looked like 3 general requirements + one engineering related class per semester. Then sophomore year was 2/2 and 1/3 and now I'm entirely in engineering classes and I kinda miss having, say, a social science class to break it up a little. This was with about a semester's worth of general AP credit going in.
Quote:4 - Living with a room mate, what is it like? I am so blessed that my Uni has a service for LGBT students to help get them situated where as they aren't placed with homophobic/problematic room mates but I haven't lived with someone for the past three years. My father does come home, but we don't interact. I prefer to be alone, is it wrong that I want to try and get a single dorm room?My freshman and sophomore year I roomed with the same guy, who I knew from high school. He was great... but by the end of year two his personal health habits were getting a little extreme but that's a story for a different time. It seems to be a trend that I have one crappy suitemate per year though, just in terms of bathroom habits. I'm in a single room this year and it's really fantastic since I'm a total introvert. By luck, I'm also on a floor with a handful of friends I work with in the cafeteria, so I'm not a shut-in like my family thought I'd be in a single. The cost stings a little, but I'm in electrical engineering so I'm not terribly concerned about my loan count (Probably a bad mode of thought). The odds are your roommate situation will be positive or neutral and once you get a few weeks in, you'll probably know a few other people's or public places that are good for getting away. MSU is pretty good about mid-semester room changes when the need arises. For every horror story I have of my friends and their blind rooming situations, there are three who met their best friend or a good friend.
Quote:5 - Using the pineappleing bathroom, and taking a god damn shower. This is what I worry the most about, I'm like a teenage girl when it comes to my body. I'm so insecure. I assume I'll probably have to use a public shower, but how does one cope with that? I generally have stomach issues with anything I eat, and therefore find myself best friends with the toilet late at night, should I try and request a dorm with a private restroom?On MSU about two thirds of the dorms have a suite set up where two rooms share one bathroom and the rest have floor bathrooms. One perk about community bathrooms is that they're cleaned daily. I've only lived with the suite set up though, so I can't comment on that. If you haven't signed up for your housing already, you should be able to figure out what the bathroom situation is and pick accordingly.
Quote:6 - Having a job on campus, should I try for it? I'm going to need to get all the money I can take, be it from grants/scholarships/loans. A job would make things better, and give me some spending money however is it really worth it?Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Check to see if your uni hires students. MSU hires students for everything from the cafeteria to building maintenance to tech support to groundskeeping, parking ticket giving, research and telemarketing. My job is insanely flexible with my class schedule and I work an average of 15 hours a week (10/20 per two. Only have to work every other weekend) and I've never had a problem fitting it in except a few minor instances. It's good for your resume, it keeps you busy, and it gets you paid. Get a job, even if it's just 8-10 hours a week.
College Questions. - madanthony - 2011-03-21
Double post by clicking reply once. Pro.
Responding to Harrison's list of stuff.
3. Printer - I used my a bit freshman year, but I get a 500 page print quota per semester in my college. And since I do almost all my work in the lab next to those printers, I don't do much of my own printing.
5. Hot Water Boiler - MSU has a dorm policy against open heat sources in dorms (candles, coffee pots, hot plates, etc) which is regularly ignored but it's something to keep in mind.
Supplies
Keep a small stapler in your backpack. You'll be a god come assignment turn-in time. Random stranger: "Oh pineapple, does anyone have a stapler?"
Other
-Dunno what your air conditioning status is, but MSU's dorms don't have it. A good box fan for your window and a decent fan for blasting your face are musts.
-I've made use of a basic sewing kits a few times
-Also, a small tool kit with a hammer, pliers, screwdriver, allen wrenches.
-If you have an old school console like an SNES or N64, bring it.
-Plastic cutlery and cups, paper plates and paper towels. You will not want to wash anything.
-If you're going to be using a bike, get a good U-lock and run it through the frame and back wheel. If your bike is a decent one, get a cable lock as well and run it through the frame and front wheel. If you're really, really, really paranoid get something to lock your bike seat to your frame as well. I dunno how Hawaii's college theft rates compare to East Lansing's but I've had friends have whole bikes get stolen, front wheels removed, back wheels removed and bike seats removed. And I have a $400 bike, so... ._.; high on my priority list. If you bike's a piece of crap, one lock will do you.
Most importantly
[SIZE="5"]If you're ready to get away, you will be fine. More than fine. You will be thriving.[/SIZE] Those other concerns melt away mind-numbingly fast once you get into the swing of things.
College Questions. - Erebus - 2011-03-21
1. Brought some things via suitcase and bought the "big things" like the TV and the Fridge when I got there. TBH I'd say scrap the extra plane ticket and use it to buy some supplies.
2. If you're doing ANYHTING outside of Software Development or Media Design your basic "Dell" with a language pack will do.
3. Mostly core. You'll be taking core classes along with your major.
4. Depends on the roomate. Honestly if you prefer to be alone just get a single dorm (though most colleges don't offer single dorms to freshmen).
5. Depends on the facilty, rarily do college showers look like the steryotpical gym/jail showers and have some sort of privacy. Once again depends on personal preference and how your college operates
6. Go for it. Try and get an IT job. I get paid $9 an hour to play on the internet for like 2 hours a day and deal with the occasional chore (install tower A in Building B) or idiot.
College Questions. - DeanNim - 2011-03-21
you guys make college/university life look osm. too bad the furthest campus from my house is still reachable within an hour.
College Questions. - shouri - 2011-03-21
Tay Wrote:Ok so since I've basically raised my self my entire high school life, and I'll be the first in my family to go to college, I know nothing of what it is like. I come to you, SouthPerry, to answer my questions regarding going to college, university to be specific. A little info on my self, I'm going to the Univesity of Hawaiii @ Manoa and will be pursuing a major in Korean or Chinese and hope to get study abroad my last two years and then go into teaching ESL or something in that field. Not worth the huge amount of debt I'll be in, but I've got one life so I'll live it.
1 - How did college move in work for you? The process I assume I'm going to follow is to fly there a day before move in, try to buy all the college supplies that aren't huge on the mainland, then move in. My mother said she'll try to go with me, but money is an issue with that extra plane ticket.
Got there 1 day beforehand. Check in with the dorm peoples. Got my assigned room key. (I knew which room I'd be staying in ahead of time of course). Placed anything I brought with me in my room. Waited for roommate. Said, "hey" and gave a small wave. Discussed how we would move the preassigned beds/furniture around so that the room didn't look crappy. Relaxed for an hour or two. Meeting with the residence people. Slept because classes started the next day T.T
2 - When it comes to laptops, what the pineapple do I need to be looking for? I will be getting a new one, and I want to make sure it can handle my koreagames, but what should I look into for school work?
Anything decent enough to play games will be fine for school work. You'll probably want to worry more about software than hardware.
3 - I've heard that first year will be just like high school, full of nothing but core classes. Does this mean I can't take a language? I know that my Uni has it's own list of requirements for graduation and moving up in rank but aside from that what have you had to do?
Depends from school to school of course.
My case:
We're given a list of Core requirements and Major requirements we have to take. We have a course catalogue that details which classes count for what. I checked to see if any classes sounded interesting to take in the list. Made a list of a few possible courses I could take. 1 Major class and 3 core classes taken 1st quarter of the school year. Switched to 2 and 2 then to 3 and 1. Then started taking whatever the hell I wanted since I mostly finished both. Depending on your Major, you may not have to take too many classes, or some classes will count towards both your Major and Core classes. So unless you're in a tough workload Major (like engineering) you'll have plenty of time to take core.
You CAN ask for help from the counselors. Despite some people's obvious bias against them, they do NOT all suck. You can easily go find out if they do suck or not. Go talk to one, ask em questions, you'll be able to tell from how they answer if they actually know what they're saying or not. If they have to consult the guidebook this isn't a bad thing. It's not like they know everything off of the top of their heads. But if they can't tell what the guidebook is trying to tell em.... then you might have a problem.
4 - Living with a room mate, what is it like? I am so blessed that my Uni has a service for LGBT students to help get them situated where as they aren't placed with homophobic/problematic room mates but I haven't lived with someone for the past three years. My father does come home, but we don't interact. I prefer to be alone, is it wrong that I want to try and get a single dorm room?
Had slight trouble with a messy roommate my freshman year. We were mostly cool about it though. Ask him to clean up a bit when things got too messy. He was cool with it. We're both pretty mellow people. And pretty much, so long as you don't completely freak out about every little problem you'll be fine. There's gonna have to be some things you let slide, but this doesn't imply you let them get away with doing bad things to you or in general. Tend not to pry/ask too much on random roommates. We're roommates not friends. If eventually you become friends with your roommate (I did), then do as you feel the roommate would be comfortable with.
It isn't wrong to want to live in a single. I lived in a single my entire 2nd year. But you should give living with a roommate a chance.
5 - Using the pineappleing bathroom, and taking a god damn shower. This is what I worry the most about, I'm like a teenage girl when it comes to my body. I'm so insecure. I assume I'll probably have to use a public shower, but how does one cope with that? I generally have stomach issues with anything I eat, and therefore find myself best friends with the toilet late at night, should I try and request a dorm with a private restroom?
Bathroom/shower locations vary depending on the dorms at my school. The more expensive dorms that have suite style apartments have a bathroom/shower shared by 4 "mini apartments". It's like an apartment of houses basically. One of those suites has 4 rooms in it and they all get to share 1 bathroom/shower.
The less expensive dorms here have a community bathroom/shower per gender per floor. You're bound to see a person or too walking back from the showers in just a towel. It's pretty normal here. There are those who take all of their clothes with them too though and come back fully dressed. We've got a bit of everything.
6 - Having a job on campus, should I try for it? I'm going to need to get all the money I can take, be it from grants/scholarships/loans. A job would make things better, and give me some spending money however is it really worth it?
Having spare money is definitely worth it. If you can avoid it during your first set of classes it would be great though. Take the time to adjust to the school first and get more familiar with the place. Get to know people first. If you spend too much time working, and not enough time meeting people... well... I'm personally glad I took the opportunity to meet people. Met plenty of pimentos but met plenty of great people too. More pimentos than great people, but I'd gladly suffer through the pimentos again for those great friends I got to meet.
I can't really think of any more right now, and I know these questions are typical but I've got no one to turn to. I've only got a little more than three months to go until I'm done with High School. I'm so scared to go to college, to grow up, to be in so much debt. But at the same time, I'm ready to get away.
Answers to specific questions found above in bold. Also:
Things to buy right away:
Paper and Pencils/Pens and perhaps notebooks. A backpack if you dont have one. A laptop. Clothes/accessories for the local weather (ie Umbrella if it tends to rain)
Some dishes/cups (microwaveable preferably and reusable) - Get em at target or something, I bought mine for cheap there. You might end up having cereal for breakfast quite a bit depending on how rushed you are. Or you might just want to end up eating something simple in your room that you can microwave. You can have the utensils be disposable if you want.
Things to wait til you discuss/see what your roommate has:
A TV (my roommate brought his HDTV with him and his fridge, so we just shared that).
A fridge (see above)
A Microwave (in return I bought and shared use of my microwave)
Things to not buy until later when you're sure you'll need it and dont have easy access to it:
A printer - It was stupidly easy for us to print stuff here at the school and we had a nice allowance for it. I had stupidly bought a printer ahead of time. While nice in that I get to print stuff while in my room... we had a printer at the end of the hall that was available 24/7 and we could send printing requests to it via wifi (after modifying a few small things, instructions were provided by the IT people on the school's website).
A bicycle/A car - It's mainly, which one are you going to want/which one can you afford. Will you even use a car? Do you need to go somewhere far on a constant basis. Are there perhaps easy bus route that can easily take you to places you'll need to go. Will having and paying for a car be more beneficial and time saving since you'll need to visit differing locations quite often and bus fees can add up (though so can gas)... All things to consider. Unless you already have one or the other, WAIT before making a decision.
Mini Vacuum Cleaner - It comes in handy, but maybe the dorm has a large vacuum cleaner you can borrow. This one's not really necessary of course.
A camera - Since it was brought up already. Buy only if you really feel you need it. Unless teachers are pimentos or you're taking a particularly high level course, you should almost never be going through material fast enough that you'd need to take a picture of the notes to be able to keep up. And even the latter case shouldn't really be happening too often, but it's not unheard of. If it's not a huge sized class, just take the notes down and if you didn't get the chance to ask a certain question, you can always ask during office hours. Normally though, good professors usually take the time to relax a bit, let people catch up a bit with notetaking and thus also provide a bit of time for people to ask questions. If this still isn't enough, or you feel that you keep having to leave blank spots on your notes, then sure, maybe taking a picture of the notes suites you. But dont decide on this before you even take a class. You probably wont end up needing it.
Hard to classify:
A cell phone - This one's kind of a toss up. Some people have phones but dont use em. Would be a waste to get one if you're one of those types. If you already have one, then you have one less thing to decide on.
Useful in that:
-you can contact your parents if anything major goes wrong.
-call in to make appointments with the counselors.
-call friends you've made to hang out with them.
-call in pizza from the nearby pizza place (Did that a lot my 3rd/4th year, aka last year and now)
College Questions. - Takebacker - 2011-03-21
Tay Wrote:1 - How did college move in work for you? The process I assume I'm going to follow is to fly there a day before move in, try to buy all the college supplies that aren't huge on the mainland, then move in. My mother said she'll try to go with me, but money is an issue with that extra plane ticket.
2 - When it comes to laptops, what the pineapple do I need to be looking for? I will be getting a new one, and I want to make sure it can handle my koreagames, but what should I look into for school work?
3 - I've heard that first year will be just like high school, full of nothing but core classes. Does this mean I can't take a language? I know that my Uni has it's own list of requirements for graduation and moving up in rank but aside from that what have you had to do?
4 - Living with a room mate, what is it like? I am so blessed that my Uni has a service for LGBT students to help get them situated where as they aren't placed with homophobic/problematic room mates but I haven't lived with someone for the past three years. My father does come home, but we don't interact. I prefer to be alone, is it wrong that I want to try and get a single dorm room?
5 - Using the pineappleing bathroom, and taking a god damn shower. This is what I worry the most about, I'm like a teenage girl when it comes to my body. I'm so insecure. I assume I'll probably have to use a public shower, but how does one cope with that? I generally have stomach issues with anything I eat, and therefore find myself best friends with the toilet late at night, should I try and request a dorm with a private restroom?
6 - Having a job on campus, should I try for it? I'm going to need to get all the money I can take, be it from grants/scholarships/loans. A job would make things better, and give me some spending money however is it really worth it?
I can't really think of any more right now, and I know these questions are typical but I've got no one to turn to. I've only got a little more than three months to go until I'm done with High School. I'm so scared to go to college, to grow up, to be in so much debt. But at the same time, I'm ready to get away.
1) Move ins vary for everyone but for me it's just a 3.5 hr drive away. Going from suburbs to being outside a major city wasn't that big a deal but it was change of scenery i suppose.
2) I was handed school standard HP laptop for that year and have had it for almost 2 years now. It doesn't have a battery but it accomplishes everything i need it to do for school and everything else. If there is no such service then just buy any PC that fits in your budget.
3) I believe you have to take a test in whatever language you want to take to guage your proficiency. My school handed me a paper saying what classes i'm taking that half of the year but afterwards it was whatever i needed to take arranged by me.
4) Everyone i know had/have singles, though over here i wouldn't say many of the kids who live in singles are very normal. I'm someone who would like a single but live with other people for the sake of it.
5) This matters entirely on where you will be living, all dorms are different. My freshman year i had 4 bathrooms shared between 23-27 people and it wasn't horrifying. They were clean 98% of the time. My dorm this year has private bathrooms.
6) If you don't have trouble with school alone then a job is a good use of time. You'll have s'hit tons of free time at college.
College Questions. - madanthony - 2011-03-21
Quote:Having spare money is definitely worth it. If you can avoid it during your first set of classes it would be great though. Take the time to adjust to the school first and get more familiar with the place. Get to know people first. If you spend too much time working, and not enough time meeting people... well... I'm personally glad I took the opportunity to meet people. Met plenty of pimentos but met plenty of great people too. More pimentos than great people, but I'd gladly suffer through the pimentos again for those great friends I got to meet.
My job was a great way to meet people. 75% of the people I hang out with currently are people I met working in the cafeteria. I started the job two weeks after I moved in.
The reception desk in each dorm at MSU has vacuums, toilet paper (low quality1-ply), and (frail) trash bags that I make good use of as well as a bike pump in the basement. Hell, I think they even have an iron and ironing board you can check out. Hawaii might do similar things.
College Questions. - Dusk - 2011-03-21
1. My college has 2 days of freshman move-in on Thursday and Friday the week before school starts, before everyone else moves in. I do an IT job and part of it is moving in a few days before THAT and I have to help them get their internet set up every year, so I've seen more than one move-in. Most schools have a list of things you need to bring - computer, sheets, surge protector, etc. though you don't really need all of those things. For one, Harrisonized listed a pomegranate load of things that I still don't have. Printer is useful but I'd rather not pay for ink when I can print for free at the library or in my department. You don't need a microwave or a fridge if you have a meal plan, either. Try to find out if there are stores nearby where you can get the things you need. A lot of people come in with their parents, unpack their clothes, posters, video games, TV, random furniture, and immediately run off to buy all their school supplies. If you don't have some means of transportation available or a store in walking distance, it may be hard to do that, and you may want to get everything you need beforehand - though this means you'll have to pack extra stuff, and if you're going by yourself, you'll want to pack light. There's a balance you want to figure out but don't worry too much if you don't get it perfect.
There is also a ton of activity going on around campus when you first arrive. Once you get settled in, go out and explore. One of my roommates freshman year did nothing but play Starcraft after arriving. I went out, met some people, and actually saw a guy I knew from a summer camp.
2. If your laptop can handle games, it should be able to handle schoolwork, unless you need to use AutoCAD or Photoshop a lot or some other computer intensive software for your major. I haven't really needed to use anything outside of Word, Excel, and CAD. If money is tight, just get something simple.
3. I took a language my freshman year. Talk to your advisor about your planned courses.
4. There's absolutely nothing wrong with living in a single. Having a roommate is good experience for learning to live with someone, but it can also be disastrous and ruin your experience at college if things go wrong. I'd consider the LGBT service, though. Who knows - you might make a friend, or at least get someone who will leave you alone. I find most people tolerable enough.
5. Um, inquire into your housing options. My freshman dorm had a public shower, but my friend had a suite with a private shower shared between two rooms. The only problem with the private showers is having to coordinate shower times in the morning, and possibly dealing with roommates who don't understand the concept of hygiene.
6. Definitely recommend.
Erebus Wrote:6. Go for it. Try and get an IT job. I get paid $9 an hour to play on the internet for like 2 hours a day and deal with the occasional chore (install tower A in Building B) or idiot.Same pomegranate here. Campus IT/Helpdesk jobs are awesome.
College Questions. - Tay - 2011-03-21
Thanks for all the replies guys, it's really helped already.
The only issue for me now is money. . . .
College Questions. - Mike - 2011-03-21
Tay Wrote:Thanks for all the replies guys, it's really helped already.
The only issue for me now is money. . . .
You seem to be an out of state student. Is that a main reason why?
College Questions. - Tay - 2011-03-21
Mike Wrote:You seem to be an out of state student. Is that a main reason why?
Yeaaaa, and I'm not sure that I'll get much help aside from FAFSA. I plan to be ~100k in debt once I graduate. :/
College Questions. - Kurtle - 2011-03-21
Tay Wrote:Yeaaaa, and I'm not sure that I'll get much help aside from FAFSA. I plan to be ~100k in debt once I graduate. :/
I won't be in that much debt and I'm planning to attend a bi'tch ass expensive school. Did you submit before getting a financial aid offer?
College Questions. - WillDaSnail - 2011-03-21
Kurtle Wrote:I won't be in that much debt and I'm planning to attend a bi'tch ass expensive school. Did you submit before getting a financial aid offer?
International students = schools don't have much funds to help out those peeps.
College Questions. - madanthony - 2011-03-21
Tay Wrote:Yeaaaa, and I'm not sure that I'll get much help aside from FAFSA. I plan to be ~100k in debt once I graduate. :/
Get to know a single financial aid officer and talk to them in person every year. My dad's done this on my behalf for the last two years and it's resulted in an extra $3000-$5000 per year in federal and MSU grant money compared to my freshmen year. Get in in their face with your situation..
College Questions. - Tay - 2011-03-22
Kurtle Wrote:I won't be in that much debt and I'm planning to attend a bi'tch ass expensive school. Did you submit before getting a financial aid offer?
Yea, and I'm getting a nice chunk of financial aid.
5.5k in grant and 9.5k in stafford loan (even though thats still a loan)
Though I did FAFSA slightly past march 1, so I hope I still get the funds....
College Questions. - Fiel - 2011-03-22
You should get the funds, but they'll be delayed a bit.
Welcome to student loan debt. Don't take out too much. You do have to pay that back.
College Questions. - Tay - 2011-03-22
Fiel Wrote:You should get the funds, but they'll be delayed a bit.
Welcome to student loan debt. Don't take out too much. You do have to pay that back.
I do know that I have to, but from what I've heard student loan debt is more forgiving and spread out over a longer period of time when compared to regular loans?
I've asked my parents to help, but at the same time I know neither of them can do much. I hate asking for money, but I think it's one of my last options.