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Surviving College With Gear And Sanity Intact?
Mshift2x writes "Like many others, I'm shipping off to college for the first time in a few days. I'm excited, nervous, and a whole array of emotions at the same time. I'm sure many slashdotters have gone through this already, and I'd appreciate any wisdom, suggestions, or thoughts the community could provide." More specifically, phrogeeb writes "Per our earlier Slashdot article on laptop lock insecurity, I've been looking around recently for other options as far as keeping track of my laptop and other semi-expensive and certainly valuable (for a college student) stuff in a dorm room setting. Any ideas? I'm looking for both laptop-specific and comprehensive solutions. Locks? Alarms? Video cameras? Trip wire? (A few serious suggestions would be appreciated.)"
In my college days, I didn't have any high-tech gadgets at all, I only need to worry about people stealing my lecture notes!
But seriously, don't bring too many expensive devices, and if you have to, don't show off them in the public.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
There's only one thing that is almost guaranteed to work, and thats locking your door. When you sleep, go to class, take a dump, take a shower, lock your door. If you don't you're just asking for trouble no matter how well you trust your floor.
Depending on your dorm layout the person responsible probably doesn't live on your floor. That said there's plenty of outsiders who might pass through looking for goodies. If you live near the ground floor don't let things be easy to spot through the window, and keep it shut with the shade closed when you're gone if you're on the ground floor.
Presently here, but not there.
Locking your doors when you leave is always a good one. I spent five years living in a campus setting and I don't remember ever hearing of someone who got their door busted in to have stuff stolen, but I have heard plenty of stories about people walking into unlocked rooms.
Treat your dorm room like a server room, always lock it up.
- Sometimes you're the pidgeon, sometimes you're the statue.
Lots of times your parents' homeowner's policy will cover your stuff - have them check that out first.
Write down the MAC Address of your Laptop. If yoru laptop gets stolen contact who ever runs the DHCP server on campus. They will be able to tell you what the last IP Address of the laptop was and where it was plugged in and when! (what dorm should depend on what subnet). I have recovered laptops for people using this technique at my University sometimes finding it is plugged in right as we checked! Call the local cops and they bust right in and your laptop is back! Nick D
While I agree that this is a good idea, it is not a complete solution. Imagine if you will, as you are approaching the Holidays getting ready to put the finishing touches on your killer term paper, and poof your laptop is gone.
Flash forward to your friendly neighborhood insurance agent office, filling out your claim for your uber cool $3k laptop, they may well cut you a check, but I doubt they will provide you with the 20 pages of history term paper that you have already pounded out.
Hint, when backing up your work, start thinking multiple physical locations.... But then again what is an education without having to re-write a paper or two, so on second thought forget the backups and go have some fun....8)
I can't emphasize that enough. Get up, and actually make it to those classes that you or your parents are paying good money for you to attend. Most professors don't care if you go or not, your roommates certainly won't care, and unless you live at home, you're parents won't know if you do or not, until you flunk out. Too many of my friends, when they first taste the freedom of college, decided that since no one is forcing them to go to every class, they don't actually go to any of them.
I don't care how smart you are, if you don't attend the classes, you won't learn the material. Trying to keep up by just reading the textbook won't cut it anymore. You will often cover things in the class that won't actually be in the book, but will help you understand the material better.
Oh, and don't forget to do all those papers, homework assignments and to study for the tests too.
But really, it's your call. Whatever you feel most comfortable with.
- A
Ultimately if someone really really wants to steal your notebook. They will. There is nothing you can really do.
:). Insurance is frequently overlooked, and while getting your laptop stolen would be shitty - being unable to afford to replace it would be far far worse.
The one thing I've recommended to friends of mine, and I will be purchasing one myself - is a backpack with a notebook slot. They are a bit less obvious on campus than traditional laptop bags which will reduce your likelihood of someone just walking past and grabbing the bag when your not looking (as they would be expecting textbooks not a laptop in a backpack).
But ultimately you need insurance. I don't know what insurance policies are like around the world, but I'm a unviersity student with 'tenant' insurance, not in dorms though, its only a $500CDN deductible if my laptop gets stolen, be it on campus or from my home. As well it is replacement insurance - not cash value insurance - so that I don't get a lower payout as my laptop depreciates in value - they would be paying for me to replace it with a laptop of equivalent value in the future.
That's what I've done to protect my shiny new IBM Thinkpad T41 that I love so much
As for gear I haven't had any problems and I dont employ any uber security methods, other than data security which really doesn't help for gear getting stolen, so I'll answer the sanity part since few people have.
Pretty much every one of these I violated my first semester, and have since changed and had a significant improvement in my college experience.
Don't bring 6 computers, two monitors/keyboards/mice, two PDAs, a PS2 + dreamcast + gba, a stereo, two TVs, a dvd player, a few old hardware for "conversation pieces" and your laptop. I did this my first semester, and while I won the "most geeky person in hightower hall" contest (not a real contest), I had no need for all that stuff. Bring a laptop, one desktop, one test machine, a TV, one or two game consoles which at least one should double as a dvd player, and some speakers. Maybe a PDA if thats your thing.
Cancel your Everquest (or whatever) accounts. I was a 4-year Everquest player and got to college and found out that Everquest didn't work on the university network. I was pretty pissed off about it for two weeks, but after a month or so I realized that I was much better off than had I been playing Everquest. I didn't even care about losing my multiple level 65's with 200+ AA after six weeks.
Get involved. We have a linux users group here at my university which is really active and very awesome. Met a lot of my now college friends this way. I'm sure your university will have an ACM chapter, an IEEE chapter, and a bunch of other geeky stuff. Join all of them. You also have a good side effect here of resume-whoring.
Don't be afraid to have fun. If you get arrested a few times, its no big deal. Do stupid stuff often and without premeditation. You'll have alot more fun this way.
Go to class at least half the time.
I was going to mod you up, but you are anon.
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Actually this is the smartest thing I expect to read in this thread, while also being the simplest and cheapest.
Lock your damn door, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It doesn't matter if you are in the room, not in the room, just running real quick down to the bathroom or across the hall to another room with the doors open. If you don't have one foot in the door and one foot out the door, throw the deadbolt.
As for your sanity, here are some rules for life in college
1. Sex. Women do all their freaky stuff in college, so have an open mind and hit as much of it as you possibly can. Buy a big box of condoms and some good lube (google for 'millenium id').
2. Class. A good education is important, but don't let it interfere with #1.
3. Network. Not TCP/IP, but people. Every job you get in the future is going to be because of who you know, so get to know a LOT of people. Get to know them well so they don't forget you.
4. The Law. Graduating from college doesn't erase your law record, so don't get arrested.
5. The Dollar. You are going to get a lot of offers for credit cards. Credit cards are not 'free money'. If you can't pay cash for it, and if you haven't managed to save enough money to buy it in the last 6 months, what makes you think you are going to earn enough money in the next 6 months to pay for whatever you are considering putting on plastic? Graduating from college doesn't erase your credit history either, so don't screw it up.
6. The Warez and MP3z. Add #5 and #6 above up and decide if you can afford it. I'm guessing you probably can't, so don't do it from your own computer.
7. Take a few classes for personal enrichment. You aren't going to meet the best chicks in your software engineering classes.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
You don't understand--I went to school with him--he's not joking.
"Recta non toleranda futuaris nisi irrisus ridebis"
Bah.
The best solution for taking notes (other than perhaps a tablet PC) is a cheap laptop. Not valuable enough to get stolen, not a replacement for a real machine (so you still have a real machine to back up onto and stuff in the very likely event that your laptop is damaged/broken/stolen), but very very useful.
With some creative Word customization, I was able to keep up with most classes. So my notes were much better, especially given that my handwriting sucks.
PDAs are wretched for taking notes on.
Gentoo Sucks
I spent two years in the dorms and they were two years I'd never want to give up. I didn't want to spend a 3rd year there and I moved off campus, but nowhere you ever live will be like the dorms will. There's always someone around to do something with, you continually meet new and interesting people, and you will almost never, ever, ever have such close proximity to that many women your age again. Move off campus after you've lived in the dorms and met people, it's great to live off campus, but living in the dorms is an experience I'd never give up.
This is very simple actually: Get renters' insurance and stop worrying about all the rest of it. Bottom line is that there's just no way to ensure in a dorm environment that everything is safe. Even if you lock things down like a government agency with high tech surveillance and alarms, your roommate will leave the door open one day and then it all is for naught.
Renters insurance will cost you for the year far less than a single piece of security equipment, probably about the same as a cheapass webcam which would probably get stolen too if it ever comes to that. Back up the critical data to cd and leave it with a friend in another room from time to time, and password protect your laptop in hopes that whoever steals it won't be able to hack in. Beyond that its just not worth the headache to try to keep an eye on everything, its just equipment that you can buy again down at Best Buy with the insurance check should somebody ever get to it. Besides that, the best security system on the planet won't help you if somebody steals your bike from the rack in front of a lecture hall, or snags your iPod in the cafeteria while you're not looking. Insurance will cover all of this and you don't have to worry about making sure its working every time you leave the room.
Get some insurance, and get some sleep.
tell your roommate to lock up also! i once woke up to a very large set of nostrils staring down at me because my roommate left for his early theatre class and left the door unlocked. even though the guy was cool and my neighbor, having a huge football player's head in your face going,"WAKE UP, FOOL!" was not fun. if your roommate is lax or not respectful of your property, start looking for a new one right away.
Unfortunately, my whole world came unraveled when I began to suffer from a mental illness called schizoaffective disorder.
It turned out to be a lot worse than it had to be because I would not seek treatment. I thought shrinks were for crazy people, and I didn't think I was crazy. Well, it turned out that by the time I got to see a shrink, I was crazy.
If you think you're mentally ill, get help from a mental health professional. Most colleges have some kind of counseling center, and often have staff psychiatrists and psychologists.
Life was pretty damn grim for a long time, but it got better because I finally got help.
I finally got my degree in physics, in 1993, after transferring to UC Santa Cruz.
This advice is particularly pertinent to college students because schizophrenia, manic depression, and schizoaffective disorder almost always strike a victim when they are a young adult. I knew a number of other people, both at Caltech and UCSC, who became quite crazy when they were students.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
As in Norton Utilities, Norton Anti-Virus.
Ah... You must mean Peter Norton.
Go and meet your professoes. Really. This was advice I got from the dean my freshman year. So, I took it. The almost never see anyone during office hours so go sometime in the first week say hi and chat with them for 10 minutes. Most are just floored since it so very rarely happens. Some will resent it but that tells you that you should probably dorp the class since oyu probably have an asshole. Nearly all I've met have chatted with me about the class, their research, the university, etc.
There are two good side effects of this:
1) If you need help, you are much more likely to get it. Maybe you want in a class in the future, and the professor remembers you and lets you in. Maybe you need some advice, and the professor give it to you. They are generally much happier to help those they know, and that have shown some initiave and intrest, than those that never say anything.
2) Grades. As mentioned by the parent, they'll give you more leanincy. Not even just for begging, you can just generally slant the grading in your favour. It's just human nature. They feel that they better know you, so they are more likely to cut you some slack.
You learn 20% in the classroom, 80% outside of the classroom - College isn't all about the classes; they are important, don't get me wrong. No one pays $20K/year to hang out. But I learned the most outside of class in the form of social interaction, mental and psychological reform, and changing and honing of my beliefs and feelings. Understand that concept and you'll make a productive 4 years.
Party like it's on sale for $19.99 - You'll never get to do it again, and even into your twenties you'll start to slow down and start saying things like, "I used to be able to do that" in reference to long nights of drinking and partying where 3pm was breakfasttime the next day. I'm not saying you need to get so wasted every weekend that you can't see straight; have a few of those, but at least go out, have a beer, and socialize as much as possible.
Appreciate the opportunities - Picture this: it's a Thursday afternoon. The weather has just gone sunny and warm, the kind that makes you feel like everything's great. You have class at 2:30. A friend says, "Too bad we have class, we should go have a beer by the river and enjoy the weather." What are you going to do? SKIP THE CLASS! Don't do it every day, but in cases like this, you'll gain more from that skip than you would have had in class. This situation hit me during senior year; all my roommates were in the same class with me. We actually sat down, wrote and email to the prof, and apologized, saying that the day was too nice to spend inside, we hoped he understood. Then we left and went out by the river, had some beers, and shot the shit. A great, happy day. When we came home, we found an email from the prof, saying, "I don't blame you."
Women are fascinating creatures -- meet some - This is obviously for the guys, but girls, feel free to reverse the idea. Women are really fascinating creatures, and I'm not talking about just sex. Their unique perspective on life and ideas and views are great stimuli for the mind; find the interesting ones and hang out with them. Cultivate great friendships with women of all walks -- even if they never turn out to be a date or a lay, there's nothing like walking across campus and being able to yell out, "Hey, Erin!" and having that cute blonde wave back at you enthusiastically, stop and talk to you. How's that for an ego boost?
That being said, I would agree with the "get laid" sentiment to some extent. At least, there's a lot of women both interesting and just plain attractive that I wished I had gotten up the guts to approach and ask them for a night of passion or at least some friendly exchanges of pleasure. So give it a shot, you'll be glad you did.
Your friends are your rock - Make friends. Lots of them. Of all types of people, backgrounds, and interests. Don't limit yourself to geeks or any other group. Knowing people of all walks gives you the power of connections, of knowing who to contact when you need something. Need a great, raucaus party to go to? Are you going to contact a geek? No! Contact that football player you made friends with in the caf line. Need an 'in' on the setup of wiring in the buildings? Call up the weird guy that studies blueprints you saw last week! I could give a million examples, but have friends. Call them randomly. Take them out for beers at 11pm. Go over and give them 'stress breaks'. Anything.
Respect your sleep - I don't mean don't stay out late or anything -- that's fine. But respect sleep for what it is: a chance to refresh. Something that makes you think clearer. If you schedule your classes in the early mornings and you're a night owl, you WILL SUFFER. I don't care how "dedicated" you are -- when push comes to shove, and it will, you'll be screwed. Know yourself, admit your weaknesses, and get over them. Watch your schedules so you can get naps and sleep appropriately.
Take Naps - Piggybacking on the above, take naps.
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