Dorm items! Part 3: Bedding

Back again!

In case you're new, this post is part of a series that I'm posting on dorm items, specifically for Michigan State students. I'm obviously not an authority and this doesn't have everything you need for the dorms, but these are items that worked for me and my friends. As an introduction to each post, I'll write a little bit about what Michigan State offers for each section. Note, these aren't affiliate links and you don't have to buy them through these links. I just use them so that you can get an idea of the items and comparison shop, or if you happen to find a good deal, so you can snatch it up as you prepare for dorm living.

Today, I'll do a short post on bedding. MSU has twin XL beds on a loftable frame. What this means (in case you don't know. I didn't really know, since I've never had the choice to loft my bed or not) is that you can loft your bed so that it is higher. Just guessing, but I'd say it lofts to be about 8-10' high. It's enough to put shelves or a minifridge or a futon underneath, so it goes pretty high. (In most of them, anyways. When I was at Yakeley, the bed lofted a little bit lower, but my friends were still able to put their desks underneath.)

On move-in day, I had my cousin loft my bed for me, but I didn't like it. Since I was on the first floor of Hubbard, my ceiling was pretty high (and I'm pretty short), so I didn't have any problems with hitting my head on the ceiling. But the "steps" on the bed are wooden and really painful to step on, so I ended up having my friend unloft my bed, which put it at about 4' high. Still high enough for me to put my boxes underneath, but I had to move my minifridge.

MSU uses twin XL bedsheets, which is kind of inconvenient. Just remember that, while twin XL sheets will fit on twin size beds, twin size sheets will not fit on twin XL beds. So, unless you happen to have a twin XL bed at home, you'll probably have to buy new sheets. When it comes closer to move-in day, stores will start to stock college dorm supplies, and usually they'll have sheet sets to fit your bed. Otherwise, check out Target or Bed Bath and Beyond.

If you don't want to buy sheets, they have a program at MSU where you can get a free linen package every week. It's all white linens and includes a fitted sheet, a sheet, pillowcase, and two towels. Obviously, if you feel like decorating your room and coordinating your linens and whatever, this isn't ideal for you. I used this though, and it's really convenient and nice because you don't have to drag your bedding to the laundry room every week, and you can exchange it weekly for clean sheets. And it's free!

I would highly, highly, highly recommend buying a mattress protector. This is the exact same one that I bought. They re-use the mattresses after "cleaning them" but really, there are so many dorms on campus and a lot of work to be done over the summer, so you never know how well they clean them. I wiped my mattress down with some Clorox wipes and then put on this mattress protector. It's very cheap and it provides a good barrier between you/the sheets and the mattress. And if you don't use the linen package or have backup sheets, it's good to use if your sheets are in the wash and you're ready to sleep.

My roommate had this mattress pad. It was very comfortable, especially because the mattresses in the dorms are really firm, bordering on hard. It was easy to clean and made the beds a lot nicer, but I didn't bother with one because I didn't have a problem with the beds. But if you're not used to firm beds, or if you get there and find that you're having trouble sleeping, a mattress pad could definitely help you. I know a lot of my friends had one. Just make sure you get one in twin XL!

One of my friends had this bedside organizer because her bed was lofted. It was really cool! I thought about buying something like this when I was planning on what to pack over the summer, but ultimately didn't buy it. But since the bed is so high and it's such a pain to climb back down to put away your glasses or cell phone or whatever, this organizer was super efficient. (Since I'm not efficient, I would have to crawl under my bed every day to pick up my glasses or whatever dropped through the crack.)

My roommate bought a heated blanket during the black Friday sales since the room became super cold in the winter, but that's not essential.

Hope this helped! The next post of the series will probably be school supplies. (: I know that the Academic Orientation Program is starting next week, so have fun and good luck to all of the incoming freshman!

Rakuzen

Dorm items! Part 2: Food/"Kitchen" items

I'm back! Here is the food/kitchen items that I promised you. This is part of a series on dorm items that my friends and I found useful for our first year of college. I'll post a little bit about how this applies to Michigan State University and some of their dorm rules/items that serve this purpose, and then I'll post pictures and links for the items that I show. Note: None of these links are affiliate links, nor am I recommending that you buy these items off the sites shown. This is just to give you an idea of the online site's price, so you can keep an eye out for it.

Now, if you're a freshman at Michigan State or if you live in the dorms, you are required to buy a meal plan. These meal plans are awful (in my opinion) because they are ridiculously expensive, and they have 100 meals/week, with no other options. Unlike other schools, you can't swipe other people in unless you have guest meal passes (which requires opening a Sparty cash account on your meal plan). And seriously, what kind of person actually goes to the dining halls 100 times a week? I don't think that I ever went under 80.

That said, the list of kitchen appliances allowed in the dorms is very small. No rice cookers, no "George Foreman style grills" (I was so bummed, I really wanted to bring my panini grill). No crockpots, no toasters. You can have a microwave and refrigerator, though. I will also mention that my roommate had a rice cooker in our room (as did a lot of her friends, or so I am told), and even though we were suitemates with the RA, we never got in trouble for it. (We also had a ginormous space heater, against my will, and we never got in trouble for that, either).

Anyways! Here are some items that I personally had in my dorm, that my friends had, etc. I also included some foods that are well-suited for dorm life.

My roommate had a coffee maker kind of similar to this. This is a Mr. Coffee 5-cup coffeemaker. The point was, she had a small and cheap coffeemaker for first semester. Neither of us drank coffee, so she used it for boiling water for tea/ramen. I know a lot of college students do drink coffee, so I'm including it on the list. Make sure that you buy filters, coffee, creamer, sugar for it. (Actually, you could probably get away with taking some from the caf.)

Second semester, my roommate replaced the coffeemaker with an electric kettle. Not sure if this is the exact brand, but whatever. The coffeemaker took up a lot of space on our counter (on my half, actually...), so she got an electric kettle instead. I hated this thing with a passion, even more so than the coffeemaker (I just can't win) because it wasn't silent. I had a really old water boiler at home that was almost silent until it was done (when it started whistling). This made noise while it was boiling which was really annoying. Anyways!

I also want to mention that my kuya from Pilipino American Student Society apparently uses his to make ramen in. And my friend's roommate used it to boil eggs in. Multi-use? I never tried either, because I always used her rice cooker to boil water since it wasn't as loud or annoying.

If you're going to buy a microwave, get one like this Haier one, because they're supposed to be under 750 watts. No one comes to check apparently, but if you prefer to stay on the safe side. I didn't have a microwave in my room because I had brought the mini-fridge, my roommate didn't want a microwave, and I did not want to get stuck lugging both a mini-fridge and a microwave back home in my small car. First semester, since I was eating in the dining halls and stuff, I didn't usually miss it, but in second semester, when I didn't want to run into people when I left my dorm, I wished that I had one.

Also, the university offers a microfridge program through the University Activities Board (UAB), but I can't find the price on the site since it's summer, so take a look later. My friend's roommate rented the microfridge through the year, and it was pretty nice. It has a freezer! Also she didn't have to bother with taking it all the way home (although we did have a small duly to carry the thing all the way to Wilson on a very hot day).

Get a minifridge. This is a Culinair one that I found online, not the one that I used. You have to make sure that it is 5 cubic feet or less. My dad brought mine home on the day that I was set to move in (about an hour before I was going to leave), and it was huge, probably not 5 cubic feet. So, I don't recommend that. My car is super small, so it was a pain to move in and out with it. I will admit that I didn't really use my fridge, and if I lived in the dorms again, I probably wouldn't bring one. I only used it to keep my waterbottles cold since I hate warm water, and also to keep my apples. Other than that, my roommate filled it with a bunch of random things (she hated the dining hall food, so she filled it with food.)

These are really the only items that you might need/want. The rest of the items are just stuff that were useful to me, but are definitely "optional" on the packing list.

I would recommend bringing some paring knives. I didn't use this kind, I actually just "borrowed" one from my house, but I've used this brand before and they're easy to use. I just kept one in my dorm for cutting and peeling fruits. You could definitely live without it, but it was useful to me more than one time.

This Hamilton-Beach single-serve blender is on my want list for this year. I wanted it last year, too, but I never got it. A couple of people on my floor had one of these, and I really loved it. If you make power smoothies or whatever, this could be helpful. I didn't end up getting it last year because I didn't know how often I would use it, since I might not have fresh fruit on hand and my freezer didn't work. But I really want this, so I think I'll just buy it, especially since I'll be living in an apartment.

credit: motherjones

Water bottles. The water at Michigan State is really weird. I guess that it's unfiltered, something like that. I don't like it, and I didn't drink it. You have a few options for water. There are two re-usable water bottles in each dorm when you first move in, so you can refill them at the water stations. Supposedly (according to my roommate, because I never did that), even that water tastes a bit odd. Sparty's sells water, a small styrofoam cup for free and a large plastic cup for $0.25. Also, they sell bottles of water (some of them sell Dasani, which I love, or Absopure, which I hate), that you can use as part of your Combo X-Change. They also sell 12-packs of Absopure water, which my roommate would usually buy but, since I'm a brand snob (not really. Absopure just has a weird taste to me), I usually would buy myself a pack of water bottles at Meijer since I had a car. An even cheaper option (which we used at the end of the year) would be the plastic milk gallon-size water that is sold at the store, or the "tank" size ones.

I guess that's all the suggestions that I have for now... I'll update if I need to. Other than that, I just had a bunch of snacks and stuff. Just remember that you can always send me a message or leave me a comment if you have a question about Michigan State! I'll do some posts on each of the dorms that I've been in, since I know that incoming freshman will start getting their dorm assignments soon. A hint: I had my AOP on July 16-17, and on the 17th, they had put dorms on StuInfo. Note that these aren't permanent as they are used for billing purposes, but mine was correct. So around the middle of July you can check and then find a "Michigan State Class of 20--" on facebook and search your roommate. Before the official room assignments went out, I had already found one of my roommate (back when I lived in Akers).

Hope this helped! I know stuff goes on sale at random times throughout the summer, which is why I'm putting up posts like these.

`Rakuzen