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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
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)
But really, it's your call. Whatever you feel most comfortable with.
- A
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.
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.
As in Norton Utilities, Norton Anti-Virus.
Ah... You must mean Peter Norton.