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After a couple semesters living in dorms, many students choose to move off campus, which is often their first real-world exposure to all the responsibilities of living independently.
Every college's dorm is different but most provide general amenities like access to printers and vacuuming of communal areas, but with off-campus housing, students are on their own entirely.
As someone who lived in off-campus housing, you'll want to get obvious necessities like toilet paper, kitchenware, and cleaning wipes, but you might also need a printer, steamer, and inexpensive seating. Here are 11 unexpected things students living off campus would need.
Moving into a college dorm can be an exciting, albeit stressful, experience.
However, dorms hope to make this transition as smooth as possible with amenities like communal lounges perfect for late night studying, pre-paid dining hall meal plans, and RAs to answer any questions and tell your neighbors to quiet down at 2 a.m.
But once you've lived in a dorm for a few semesters, you're ready to swap your student ID for a key to off-campus housing. This also means you're entirely responsible for stocking your own bathroom and kitchen, resolving roommate issues without the help of RAs, and handling all the details of modern living without the dorm amenities.
I'm a few years out of college, but I remember counting down the days until I could move out of my dorm and into my own place - free from RA oversight and mandatory quiet hours.
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While I definitely appreciated the freedom to stock as many cans of cheap beer as I could fit in my fridge, I didn't realize all the ways in which dorms made my life easier until I'd moved into my apartment.
Beyond the obvious items like toilet paper, kitchenware, and cleaning wipes, here are 11 surprising products you'll need when living off campus for the first time:
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Most dorms have designated areas designed for getting work done. Large tables, lounge zones, and bean bag chairs were always available without having to walk outside to a different building. This was great for me because I always liked to study at home rather than schlep to the library and fight for a spot near an outlet.
Once I moved off-campus though, it was harder to find a suitable place to do my work at home. A lap desk was really helpful because I could work in bed or on the couch without having to worry about any of the health hazards of keeping a steaming computer on my lap.
Even if you're the kind of student who does all their work strictly at the library, a lap desk is essential for any off-campus renter because it also doubles as a portable dining table for meals in front of the TV, out on the porch, or in your roommate's room.
Whether you're hosting a chill afternoon after class, tailgating for a football game, or meeting your neighbors for a potluck, you'll need cheap seating options — which doesn't come with the rent.
That's where a pack of foldable camping chairs can come in handy. These chairs are inexpensive, easy to fold out when friends are around, and easily stored away in a corner, so no one has to sit on the floor.
In the dorms, most students usually bring their own little caddy of grooming essentials to and from the shared bathrooms. But once you've moved off campus, you can retire the shower caddy and actually store your shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and everything else in the bathroom. If you're still using a 3-in-1, grow up.
However, if you're sharing a bathroom with a bunch of roommates, there probably aren't enough ledges to hold all your things without a ton of bottles crashing onto the floor every time you move around.
This suspension shower rod can be easily installed in any part of your bathroom, and comes with four racks so all your roommates can store their bar soaps in their own areas.
While patrolling RAs may seem like a buzzkill at the time, another great perk provided by dormitories is the security. You need a key card to enter basically every room, and there is a fully-staffed crew constantly monitoring the premises.
But once you've moved into off-campus housing, you're on your own in terms of protecting your stuff.
While I've always locked my own room within the house I lived in at school, living with roommates means that you're depending on others to keep all the doors and windows locked. I would keep my valuable items like my passport, loose cash, and anything else worth stealing locked away in a filing cabinet, secure from random house guests and even your own roommates.
While dorms aren't famous for their closet space, a lot of off-campus housing options provide even less space for your clothes.
This results in overly-stuffed drawers and hanging rods on the brink of snapping. Plus, this overcrowding means there likely isn't room for an ironing board to straighten out inevitable wrinkles.
This handheld steamer is a perfect solution because it's compact, portable, easy to store, and best of all, doesn't require an ironing board. You just fill it up with water, let it heat up, and steam your clothes while they're still on the hanger.
Another major benefit of dorm life is the slew of available printers. While most schools have online portals for turning in papers, some professors still require students to hand in physical copies.
Going to the nearest building or library is annoying if you're using your last four hours before class to reach the required word count, but if you get a cheap printer (and split it among your roommates), you can use that time to finishing cramming, and hopefully squeeze out a passable grade.
A large slice of the college student's budgeting pie is already attributed to beverages, so any way to save money on coffee is clutch.
In the dorms, there's usually a little coffee shop, or dining hall where you can use part of your required meal plan cash, but once you've moved off campus, your coffee intake is based solely on how much you can afford to drink.
This $20 Black+Decker coffee maker is a cheap but effective machine. It doesn't take pods, so you're going to need to buy your own beans and a grinder, but it will still save you money compared to getting a decaf-upside-down-low-fat-caramel-macchiato every day.
If you're feeling fancy, we love Atlas's curation of beans from around the world, but you can also get cheaper beans if you are a twice-daily drinker.
When you live in a dorm, most of your meals are probably at the dining hall, so you don't have to worry about saving leftovers because there'll always be more hot and ready grub.
However, once you move into a place with your own kitchen and a full-sized fridge, there will most likely be leftovers that you'd want to take to campus and eat between classes, so a good set of storage containers will come in really handy.
Additionally, because you'll most likely be sharing a fridge with your roommates, these also serve as a great way to separate and organize everyone's items.
Another thing that you may have taken for granted while living in the dorms are the regularly scheduled cleanings of communal areas. Once you move off campus, you actually have to clean all the nooks and crannies yourself. Plus, you'll probably have friends over, meaning more preparatory and recovery cleaning days.
A Swiffer Sweeper can get rid of the initial layer of dust and grime congealing on your floor. It can be stored easily, and can be used with the dry and wet wipes. I'd recommend stocking up on refills so you always have some around — you'll need them.
There's a whole crew working on upkeep and daily maintenance in the dorms, so you don't have to deal with anything. However, once you become a renter, you either have to deal with problems yourself or wait for you landlord to send over a maintenance person to deal with it on their schedule.
If you're forced to handle any major projects, definitely have your landlord call in a professional, but for quick fixes and minor shape-ups like loose screws or hinges, keep a tool kit handy. You shouldn't have to rely on a stranger to tighten up a screw or hammer in a nail when it's something you can easily take care of yourself.
A light- and noise-blocker for the bottom of your door
Quiet hours are strictly monitored by security officers and RAs in the dorms, so not having to deal with these social limitations is a primary bonus of moving out on your own.
However, one of the major lessons I learned once I moved in with friends is that some people aren't going to act according to your schedule. Just because you have an exam early in the morning doesn't mean that your roommates are not going to pregame in the living room.
Adding a light- and noise-blocker to the bottom of your door isn't going to get rid of all the extra noise, but it can help dampen things enough so you can study or sleep in peace.
