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"     This time of year it&amp;#039;s all about back to school shopping, and if you have a son or daughter headed off to college for the first time, &amp;quot;back to school shopping&amp;quot; is taking on new significance. To help you decide what you do need to buy, or bring from home, and what you don&amp;#039;t, who better than an upper classman? Here&amp;#039;s some advice from Hillary Reeves, one of our GHRI summer interns and soon to be a senior at Fordham University in NYC. &amp;quot;In a few short weeks, you have to gather and pack up everything you&amp;#039;ll need to make your dorm room feel like home (and if your parents are anything like mine, they&amp;#039;ll have very different ideas than you about exactly what you&amp;#039;ll need). Before my freshman year, I packed up my stereo, while my mom insisted I take a mini ironing board. Neither of these things were necessary but there were quite a few things I found I did need that neither of us thought of. So, I put together this list of things to skip and things to bring, all based on my own college experiences. Hopefully, it will help you and your mother agree on a few things:  Skip it! You&amp;#039;ll never use it!  1. Printer: My mom refused to buy me a printer and suggested, to my horror, that I print assignments in my school&amp;#039;s computer labs. But during my first few weeks at school, I reluctantly realized that my mom was right: Paying ten cents a page in the computer lab wasn&amp;#039;t so bad. I avoided spending money on ink and didn&amp;#039;t have to worry about printer malfunctions minutes before class.  2. Over-the-door hooks: &amp;quot;Where are you going to hang your towels?&amp;quot; my mother inseyoisted, as she tossed over-the-door hooks into my shopping cart. While she was right about the extra hooks, my dorm room, like many others, had fire-resistant doors, meaning that there wasn&amp;#039;t enough space between the door and the doorframe to hang anything. Adhesive hooks like 3M Command strips are probably a better choice.  3. Formal clothes: Leave your prom dresses and high-heels home. While you may have occasion for one formal outfit, most days you&amp;#039;ll just be studying in your sweats.  4. Books/CDs/DVDs: You won&amp;#039;t have much leisure time for reading and MP3s and online video streams eliminate the need for CDs and DVD collections. 5. High School memorabilia: Your yearbook and cheerleading jacket will just gather dust as you make new friends and join new clubs; leave them at home where they&amp;#039;ll stay in good shape. Bring it! You won&amp;#039;t be sorry!1. Nail Clippers: So small, so easy to forget, and so important! About a week or two into every fall semester, my roommates and I always realize that we&amp;#039;ve forgotten fingernail clippers. Sure, it&amp;#039;s something you can go and pick up at the drugstore, but if you buy them along with other toiletry items, ahead of time, on your parent&amp;#039;s dime, it&amp;#039;s one less thing to distract you from your studies. 2. A copy of important documents: For financial aid records and study abroad forms, you&amp;#039;ll need a copy of your passport, birth certificate, and/or social security card. Rather than scrambling to get them mailed to you overnight, bring and keep copies with you in a safe and secure place (it may even be a good idea to get a lock box for your room), but be sure to leave the originals safely at home.  3. Rain boots: As my mom loves to point out, I no longer have the luxury of being driven door-to-door, so when it&amp;#039;s raining or snowing and I have to get across campus, nothing&amp;#039;s more valuable than a good pair of rain boots. Your feet will stay dry and you won&amp;#039;t have an excuse for skipping class! 4. An Expanding File folder: Countless times I&amp;#039;ve lost a syllabus, forgotten an assignment, or misplaced a graded paper. While you can store a lot on your computer orexternal hard drive (also a college essential), there are some papers that just need to be saved the old-fashioned way. My mother suggested an expanding file folder to me, and I can&amp;#039;t live without it. (Thanks Mom!) Organize things by course in this compactable folder, and at the end of the semester, decide what is and isn&amp;#039;t worth saving. 5. Can Opener: Chances are, whether you&amp;#039;ll be eating primarily in a cafeteria or will access to a kitchen, your mom is out shopping for non-perishable food items at this very moment. But in order to avoid having to open a can of sloppy joe sauce with a screwdriver, keep a can opener on hand. Though, having a screwdriver isn&amp;#039;t a bad idea, either.&amp;quot; Before you hit the stores, check out this college packing list from our GHRI Directors. Going to Bed Bath &amp;amp;amp; Beyond? Check out what Carolyn Forte has to say about its new Pack and Hold service. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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