By Amanda Cross, Student at the University of Central Arkansas

A new school year is on the horizon, and for freshmen just entering college, it’s going to be a brand new experience.

I have a list of things that I think are important for college students to remember. From the small stuff to the big stuff, here is my list of essentials for incoming freshmen.

1. Bed Risers
Ah, college residence halls, your significantly smaller home away from home. There is so much storage under your bed, so if you can rise up your bed, there is so much more space in your room. Some colleges allow lofting equipment, but those colleges are few and far between now. Most colleges allow their students to have bed risers. Bed risers are a wonderful addition that fit comfortably under your bed, giving it some lift and allowing you to put all of those things under your bed like snacks, luggage, etc.

2. Command Strips
College residence halls don’t like wall damage and that’s a fact. Command strips stick to most things and are easy to pull off the walls. If command strips just aren’t working for your walls, try sticky tacky or painters tape, depending on how heavy the thing that you want to hang on the wall is.

3. Laptop
In this day and age going to college without a laptop is not going to cut it. Sure there are computers at the library, but laptops offer a ton of flexibility with where and when you can work. It doesn’t have to be super fancy if you are just using it for school, but it’s important that it has a pretty good processor speed, as you don’t want to have to wait forever to do a simple task.

4. Microsoft Office Suite
It’s pretty impossible to get through college without buying an office suite. Luckily, the University version of Office is pretty inexpensive with a college email address. Microsoft Office is essential to college life because you will use it all the time to write papers, view syllabi and make presentations. If you don’t have Microsoft Office, you could probably get by with Open Office or Google Drive until you can afford to buy a suite.

5. Backpack
Backpacks are super important when it comes to college. Not only can they be a great fashion statement when added to a cute outfit, but they are just practical. I think some people feel as though backpacks are outdated, but there is nothing nice about back problems that stem from carrying all your books around all day. Backpacks are all around every campus, and there are so many different styles and colors that it’s hard to have a similar backpack to everyone else!

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net