There are lists and lists of college necessities on the Internet. You find the good and the bad and the just plain ridiculous. So of course I have decided to throw my voice in with the rest.

Bring an external hard drive and a flash drive to college.

Use that flash drive to carry documents, photos, VIPs (very important papers), and other files you might need during the day. I often do not have a chance to return to my apartment in the middle of the day, and I don’t like to carry my computer with me all the time (too heavy, too fragile, too expensive). If you have a paper due, either email it yourself so you can access it from a computer lab (there are loads around campus) or put it on that flash drive and keep it in your pocket.

Use an external hard drive to back up all those VIPs, photos, and extensive music libraries. Frequently. I might have under 10 GB of music (a shockingly low number compared to some of my friends), but I do have a updated tally of 49 separate Word documents relating to my BSI project. Forty-nine. If I lost them, I would do more than cry. I back up my files every day.

So bring those digital safeguards! You never need them until it’s too late… so be proactive.

Or you can just go back to pencil and paper, as I did during my physics adventure (which extended into Nutcracker performances, as you can tell by my outfit)