Packing for University can sometimes be stressful since it brings out many feelings of anxiety both  for parents and students. It is a tedious task for some or most of us. Some or most of us have been used to our parents doing most of our chores for us, we also have lived most of our lives with our parents and its TIME TO BREAK FREE!!

The list goes on. Using this page, I just want to raise a few points and answer some questions raised. More info can be found within the General Chat section of the Weekone.co.uk  forum

The challenge comes in knowing what to leave behind. This seems like an impossible task as it seems we need everything and try to remember very fine details while eating our mars bars, browsing the internet or on the toilet seat.... maybe :) What i found useful was just imagining situations i may find myself in. E.G. Imagined i  was getting ready to go on a night out , getting ready for lectures, waking up in the morning and going for a shower/bath and running through these routines in my head and noting down all the things i used or needed for that activity, otherwise known as a "lifestyle inventory." A lifestyle inventory is a chronicle of what you use in your everyday life to maintain your current standard of living. It involves taking some notes and pausing for thought, but the result can be quite practical.

Brief example: Imagine going to lectures in the morning.

• I wake up and go to the shower - things needed for that 
  1. Alarm clock (to help wake up) 
  2. shower gel/bar soap for washing and all other washing things 
  3. When i finish that  i would need a towel, then a bath robe probably
  4. That done i would probably need some body cream, deodorant, perfume, hair gel, toothbrush and tooth paste, hair drier, and (other hair essentials), contact lenses to wear / glasses, lip-gloss for the ladies and other "lady items" (a totally different section on it own) :)  Moving on, 
  5. Clothes to wear, shoes, hats ( for bad hair days IS ESSENTIAL  LOL) 
  6. Bag for lectures, stationary, books. All packed and then  off  to breakfast and then to lectures,
  7. How do I get to lectures - here you would have remembered to have a watch to time it right to either catch the hopper (a bus for students that runs in the uni between all campuses), Get a bike for convenience or walk to lectures (depending on the distance).



• Note all highlighted number are the things to note. These are the items i would run through in my head and note on paper and try and remember to pack. Using a method like this You can easily remember slight details or ask urself questions as you think along. JUST ONE OF MANY WAYS TO REMEMBER THINGS TO PACK.

Ideas of  things to pack........

• Winter: The winter in Nottingham is not milder than in London but is probably milder than other northern or coastal cities. Heavy Snowing is rare but it does snow a bit. If you are a car owner remember antifreeze, ice scrapper, and all other winter essentials, You don't want to be stuck anywhere.. It is, however, windy because of the open spaces around and the cold can be penetrating (I'll leave that to your imagination)! A winter jacket is useful and bring layers of clothes, but don’t go over board. Spring comes in Feb/March (not entirely sure when). May/June it starts hotting up so no jumpers and wooly stuff although saying that bring 2 or so jumpers as knowing the british weather it can suddenly become cloudy and cold during summer.



• Bed Stuff: The Halls should all provide pillows, white bed sheets (good for TOGA parties), and a Duvet cover (in Florence boot i know every Tuesday you can change your bed sheet and a pillow case),  if you love your own pillows etc, bring your own. All sheets are supplied clean on your bed when you arrive.



• Medicine and First Aid Kit stuff: (First aid kit not entirely needed). Seems random i know but Definitely bring Plasters, u never know. Medicine: Artichoke tablets - kill even the bitchiest of hangovers inside of about 2 hours as recommended by jonny83 from the weekone forums. It's also good to pack I.B. Proffen for aches and pain and a pack of pro-plus.
  
  
• Health matters: Tooth brush, mints, creams, condoms for guys / pills or whatever necessary for girls, soap, air fresheners, nail clippers-they get lost all the damn time, bring a few pairs. etc. Extra Socks and Underwear: Doing laundry "can" be expensive (unlikely tho, considering the amount of booze some of us buy hehe) and it's a pain. You can always re-wear jeans and sweaters, but clean underwear and socks are key. Some guy said to me, " Hey man underware is recyclable", i was like, "shutup" he said, " no man trust me all u have to do is turn in the other way round and ur soughted". Thats just gross and hilarious.
  
  
• Flip Flops: Using shared showers equals Foot fungus (sorry excuse my words, couldn't think of any thing else, showers/ baths are cleaned every other day in some halls) or your gross hallmates will leave chunks of hair and soap in the shower or mud from football or rugby and you'll step on it...eeekkk... It may feel weird to be wearing shoes to the shower at first, but in the long run your feet will appreciate it. U can also chill in your flip flopsaround hall etc.
  
  
• Corkscrew: I cannot stress the fact that hardly anyone brings one of these kool gadgets. Essential for wine bottles on the fresher's week or formals, come on people !!!
  
  
• Passport Photos: are a must have, it avoids you having to queue in places like the sports centre just to take a simple photo. (SMILE & SAY CHEESE).
  
  
• Drying Clothes: You may want to remember to take a clothes horse to dry your clothes if  you don't want to spend money on the driers in the laundry room or just cant figure them out like me. Laundry basket for smelly clothes for washing. You can get tablet soap, conditioner/softner, soap powder, vanish for those hard to remove stains too. Just ask your parents or those who know how to laundry for tips. LoL
  
  
• Extension leads: are also a must have, hall rooms may just have like two plugs which is not enough for any thing. Never underestimate the amount of  Shit  you will need to plug in within your room. (International students may want to invest in a universal adaptor)
  
  
• Running shoes: for sports, Jogging, people pretending to keep fit, or general activities as well as a good pair of walking shoes (you will need them if  you are walking to lectures in the rain or just round Nottingham).
  
  
• Hangers:  Just a few to get started. Wire hangers are so last IRON AGE guys/girls and spoil ur clothes. Get wooden or good plastic hangers and your clothes will love u :) 
  
  
• Locks: for gym (although they do sell padlocks for £3 or so) and other lockers or cupboards you may want to lock.
  
  
• Blue-tak / White-tak: to hang posters or pictures on the prison like walls in your room as nails / tape is not allowed. I included White-tak because some uni's don't allow Blue-tak cos it stains the walls, therefore an alternative is White-tak. U need pictures / posters on your walls unless you want your room to be like a Siberian Gulag's cell.
  
  
• Cutlery, cups, plates and the like: I realized that it is essential that every room should have paper plates, plastic cups, napkins, paper towels, and plastic silverware  as you definitely want to Drink or make some noodles or whatever when you come back from a club or just feel really hungry in the evenings. There's nothing lamer than ordering a pizza and having to use your sleeve as a napkin, especially if it's a date or something like that. So always keep your room stocked with this. If at all possible, and this is my inner nerd speaking, try to get some breakfast every morning. Get a refrigerator if you can afford it, put some beer and orange juice in there, and buy some frosted flakes or whatever you like and just sit and eat it. You'll feel better and do better in school. :)
  
  More on Cutlery etc...: Its not just for catered people only, If you live in self-catered accommodation you may also run out of clean plates to use probably due to a large amount of guests or just sheer laziness to wash up. So get some plastic-ware. Unfortunately, the simple method of writing your name on things such as milk to keep in the communal fridge DOES NOT (to my complete shock) deter people from using/stealing them!!!
  A mini-fridge would have been VERY welcome in my room last year.
  As for paper plates - get real ones as well, and proper cutlery too. You can always take them to your second year house when you leave halls.
  Even in catered halls there will be times when you don't want to get up for breakfast, or can't face any more hall food, at which point you can make your own in the (in my experience) limited kitchen facilities.
  
  
  You dont need like a massive cutlery set but just like a 2 pairs of knife and folks including spoons. Your friend may want you guys to chill with some cake or u may want to cut up some pizza. You never know. Its just not even bulky so why not.
  
  Also i know a lot of friends that get hungry and come round for biscuits, juice or most famous in a students room the "POT NOODLES" the new convienience food, when you get the pot noodle horn!!!! How u gonna eat that................ lol
  
  
  
• Light bulbs!!: From what i heard while in hall, You don't have to buy these for your room. Just ask the porters and they will replace damaged bulbs..
  
  
• Camera: U want to keep the memory of your first week, Uni life and friends alive.......Dont u?
  
  
• Mirrors: There is not really any real need for you to struggle bringing a mirror cos most rooms have a mirror in them. Ladies may want to bring a full length mirror but again its totally not very necessary. Individuals may want to if they want, that's ok. But some rooms / bathrooms have full length mirrors. I know that for sure in Florence boot hall anyway :)
  
  
• A Rug: I never got one because I found a way to run out of money for supplies, but if you can get a rug it makes your room feel less like a closet and more like home. It's also good for keeping your feet from turning jet black (unlikely but...) when you walk around on your floor in the mornings and after your shower.
  
  
  

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• Entertainment part: Games, DVDs, music, board games, hand crafts, etc. Bring things to entertain yourself and friends. Even if you're like me and just sat down to play your music and PC games the entire year because nothing was going on at the moment. It's good to have. The PS2 is your best bet because it has a lot of games for it, it plays PS 1 games, and it plays DVDs and MP3 cd's. Outside of Metroid Prime and Def Jam Vendetta I don't see a reason to get a game cube. And the X-Box is just a joke. If you have a computer you can get almost all the games out for it on there. (others may have their opinion which i fully understand)
  
  
• Some pointers....................... from NJ
  something i found really useful at uni is a thick blanket as the heater wasn't really effective in my room.
  for all you musically talented lot, we've got a fully equipped band practice room, so get your guitars and lets rock notts together! theres a drum kit too, so all u drummers just need to get your stickys. pm me for more info if u want - i play drums and am a bandsoc member.
  get some fruit squash or something, and a few glasses would be useful too. or you can nick some from the dining hall like some of us did last year. just make sure you return it at the end of term or you all will get charged for missing crockery!
  My hunnys, DON'T get candles as they have been known to set off fire alarms. fire drills are common, so be prepared to be out in the cold at 6am. maybe even 5 .
  you'll be eating a lot from Dino's, the very reasonable local pizza place. we used to get 2 medium meat feasts for 5 quid! or stock up on frozen pizzas that you can heat up in the micro.
  Lads, we spent endless nights playing counterstrike. sometimes we had 30 people playing at the same time! so get your games, as the uni LAN is fast.
  BUT the bad news is that kazaa and the like don't work well here. but last year we used this program called Ares, to share files within uni. worked very well - we had half the uni on the network sharing everything from music and movies to games.
  So everyone get on Ares once u get to uni and have registered with SNS. That's where the fun is.
  One thing i found very useful in uni was a soap dish - i forgot to get one when i first came
  get decent speakers, but not too big as you may get knocks on your door from the hall tutor.
  an alarm clock. lots and lots of posters. and blu tack. and a rug for the floor to brighten up the room. (not bigger than 4ft by 6ft)
  a clothes drying rack if you don't like the uni dryers. and of course, something to put your dirty laundry in.
  don't overload the washing machines as you may end up with tattered clothes which aren't even clean.
   
• Registration information
• Medical card
• Social security card
• Financial aid forms

Now I'll just put a long list of things also needed incase any slipped by........ As posted.

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Bikes Issues: This is a matter of choice, or if you can afford it or ride one. (cant believe I'm saying the latter, but yeah some people cannot still ride bikes. Nothing to be ashamed of though.). Click here for cycle map route.

Small note: Willoughby is just near Florence boot so kind of the same distance to most places on campus. These two halls are located nearest to the west entrance, which is way over the other side of campus if looking at it from the north entrance or halls like Lenton or Cripps. Lenton, Cripps or Hu Stu are close to most departments so about 2-10 minutes walk at most. I'm in Florence boot and i find it convenient riding my bike around campus to my lectures (it gives me like about 10 minutes extra at the breakfast table.) making it possible for me to take 5 minutes to the engineering department just b4 lectures at 9.00 - however walking is about 20 minutes so set off early.

Bike locks: There are also bike racks in most places .... just get a really good lock and if possible lock your bike seat (it was and was not so hilarious when mine got nicked) I had to ride it to a bike shop like that to get the right seat fitted.) as well or tighten the bolts cos they can get nicked although its not very likely. As a second yr, I have experience about this stuff. Your hall should have a bike shed as well so u can lock it away. (Good tip: Get the coil type locks as they can go round most parts of the bikes "anatomy" (cant believe I wrote that), U type locks are still good as long as u think your seat is safe / not too worried about it. Big chain-link type locks are too bulky for my liking.)

Chain Lock	Coil Lock	D-Lock

Getting a key for the bike shed in FB/ most halls I guess (not sure. Please give me some input!!) set u back about 5 pounds which is refundable when u hand in the key. Ur probably wondering what the advantages of a bike is in Uni. Well it a good, easy, reliable (as long as ur tires are pumped ) and convenient means of transport whenever wherever you want to go. I usually cycle to town occasionally
1. for the exercise
2. convenience of not having to wait for a bus, saves money (buses are £1.20 to town from campus using the rainbow 5 (they give change) or £1.10 (they don't give change exact fare only) using other buses note this for reference)
3. I can reach more places if I want to go else where.
4. There are bike racks in town because the two big shopping centers have pedestrianalised (is that a word?) areas. 

Hopper bus:  This is a free bus service that runs inter campus.

See forum for more details.

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Every room is fitted with a number of power points. Unfortunately the use of irons, cookers, toasters, hairdryers is not permitted in rooms as the supply for the rooms is not catered to cope for devices with a Wattage > 1200W so remember to get a packet of 5amp fuses to keep your electrical devices safe. (which protects you from power surges which happened like 3 times a day for me till i noticed that someone kept putting my room heater up to maximum. But after i reduced it everything was fine and saved my new fuses.)

There's a power points in the corridors for the cleaners Hoovers, so just use those. Also good for irons, toasty makers and kettles.
A friend managed to run a mini fridge, PC + monitor, printer and lights etc off the power in the room. Had to unplug the fridge to use the kettle but it wasn't a big deal really, there's plenty of power in the rooms. Another mate of mine bought a cinema surround system and a DVD player, ran PC, monitor, TV and PS2 all at the same time with no noticeable flicker in lighting either.

Looking at the stuff on people's list from last year and comparing with what I have here:
Laptop 1A (230w)
Monitor 1.2A (276w) (and that’s for my 21” monitor!)
Speakers (I assuming they are self powered computer types) so probably 400w peak, so about 100w average (RMS) (0.4A)
MP3 player (CD type) 0.05A (10w)
At a rough guess you have about 2.65A (616w) so far, and this is the maximum (electrical things are generally rated at a higher current then they actually draw, if only on the grounds that if it drew more current than they said it would you could sue them for selling dangerous goods, thus they like to give a large margin of error!)

The 5A asked by your halls to get is about 1,200W. 13A (standard 13A domestic socket) designed for the stated maximum electricity strength a standard plug can take before it explodes ( cracking up/melting.) Common electrical appliances draw much much less power than this! The only things likely to draw more power than 5A are things that heat using electricity e.g.:
Kettle 2400w (10A)
Large hairdryer 1800w (7.8A)
Iron 1300w (5.7A)

I recommend getting a travel kettle, travel iron, travel hair dryer which have a power rating of about 400-600w adequate for your rooms. The 'normal' hair dryers used are about 1000-1200w which might cause some problems.

Toasty maker are also a good idea :idea: of something to bring if you want. Most ppl I know use the power points outside their rooms to operate it as it is safer. Although the Christian union in hall have a cheese toasty night occasionally for anyone to enjoy so good for if u have the munchies.
Once a while the porter may come by to check the fuses in the rooms, so be prepared to switch off everything 4 that.!!
 

Note For International Students: International students may want to invest in a universal adaptor for their electrical devices also Remember to change from your countries voltage level e.g. 110/115 volts to 230/240 volts, Last year some people blew their computers because of forgetting this fact. Click picture to enlarge

Click picture to enlarge.

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1. A driver is a piece of software that works with the OS to control a particular piece of hardware, like a printer or a scanner or a mouse or whatever.
2. Memory stick: This is a device for useful for storing and transferring your info from your personal PC/laptop/MAC to another PC/laptop/MAC (probably a uni owned PC) its virtually a stress free way of transferring info from pc to pc.
3. Ethernet card: An add-on hardware component that provides communications between a PC and a network connection
4. Still unsure of a word just google by typing define: whatever word it is into the google search bar.

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WOW!! I've come to the end of this enormous and hopefully tremendously helpful list. So look through it as many times as you want and note most of the important facts. Thanks for visiting this page..........

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