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.)"

Comments

Re:Lock your dorm door = number 1 rule.

[Toresica]

Lock your damn door, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Indeed. Not only can your stuff get stolen, but something could happen to you. I've heard stories about guys wandering into girls' rooms at night and hitting on them, or, in my ex-roommate's case, cutting thier hair. (She is my ex-roommate because she moved into another building after that. She also blamed it on me :p)

Also, consider buying a desktop, rather then a laptop. They're a lot harder to steal. And no, it's not worth having a laptop to take notes on in class - unless you're taking English Literature or something, you'll find it a lot easier to take notes the good old-fashioned way, on paper.

Re:Lock your dorm door = number 1 rule.

[dincubus]

8. consider some criminal justice courses, trial techniques are an easy A. 9. be open minded to #1, freaky chicks rock. i speak from experience. 10. consider some of the student organizations, can meet chicks for #1 there 11. consider a hands off policy for people who want to borrow things, if you do not want a hands off policy, consider sever penalties for non-return. 12. concealed carry permits are something nice to have. 13. tripwires, booby traps and high explosives for those times when you are not in your room can be a must if the situation warrants it 14. getting into a light bondage thing for #1 can be fun, as long as the chick is into it

English lit (for the one person who'll read this)

[westendgirl]

Tip: if you are taking English lit, make a lot of your notes in the novels and poetry books. This will save you a ton of time during in-class exams and will even help you with term papers. For novels, I used to write topic headers on the blank pages at the front/back of the book, then note the pages with notes on them. This helped me ace my English degree.

Re:Lock your dorm door = number 1 rule.

[LuxFX]

Amen on that credit card advice!!!

I'll match your Amen and raise you three more. True story:

I was walking around in downtown Chicago late one night, toward the end of my college years, when a homeless man and woman stopped me and asked for money. I said something to the effect of, "Listen man, I'd like to help you out, really. But I've got $12,000 in debt right now, on top of a $19,000 car loan, $18,000 in school loans, and a few thousand I still owe my dad. I can't spare a dime." The guy turned to the woman and said, "Damn, he's worse off than we are, let's get out of here."

The biggest problem being my overuse of four (4!) credit cards. I was stupid. Extremely stupid. This was four years ago, and I've been doing debt management the whole time on the $12,000 credit card debt. I'm finally just a few months away from paying off the first two of the four cards, but I've got a few years left before I get the rest paid off.

Get one tiny credit card for emergencies, but never use it except emergencies. For all the rest of the bazillion credit card offers you will get in the mail, always, always, always tear them up. Get a checking account with a debit card that can be used as a visa card, and use this whenever you need a credit card.

If only somebody had told me this, or I hadn't been dumbass enough to figure it out on my own....