7 Things Every College Student Needs in Their First Apartment

This list is to make sure you don’t suffer from the nightmare of preparing to move from your dorm room to your new apartment.

Well, you did it. You found that dream apart­ment. You final­ly moved out of that small, rinky-dink col­lege dorm room equipped with a twen­ty-year-old twin-size bed that smelled like feet, a few inch­es sep­a­rat­ing you and your room­mate and an old rick­ety desk that you nev­er used.

Now, you moved up in the world and are try­ing to be a real adult with your first col­lege apart­ment. Per­haps you’re mov­ing to an apart­ment pro­vid­ed by your col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty, or you some­how con­vinced your par­ents to co-sign a lease for you in an off-cam­pus apart­ment that is a lit­tle nicer than the col­lege-owned property.

Regard­less, you are now becom­ing a real-life adult with a real-life apart­ment with, most like­ly, your own room, kitchen and bath­room instead of the com­mu­nal ones that you shared with an entire floor of co-eds. Even though you prob­a­bly have room­mates, shar­ing an apart­ment with three or four oth­er peo­ple is def­i­nite­ly more ide­al than shar­ing a dorm room with them.

You’re prob­a­bly super excit­ed right now as you and your room­mates are try­ing to map out exact­ly what you need for your new pad to make it your new home for the next year or two. To be hon­est, you’re prob­a­bly sur­prised at how much stuff you will actu­al­ly need in your new apart­ment, much of which you didn’t even think you need­ed until now, such as a can or wine open­er. Yes, sim­ple things like that get over­looked all the time when col­lege stu­dents are mov­ing from a dorm room to an apart­ment because you’ve nev­er had to wor­ry about bring­ing small house­hold items. All you’ve had to wor­ry about so far is bring­ing bed­ding, bed ris­ers that you most like­ly didn’t use, toi­letries, cloth­ing, a microwave if you’re the room­mate that got stuck with that task and a mini-fridge to house all of your cheap alcohol.

Being in an apart­ment is very dif­fer­ent from liv­ing in uni­ver­si­ty hous­ing and you will need a pletho­ra of things for your new home. But don’t wor­ry, this arti­cle has got you cov­ered. Here are the 7 things every col­lege stu­dent needs for their new apartment.

1. Wine opener

As pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed in this arti­cle, a wine open­er is a cru­cial yet fre­quent­ly over­looked neces­si­ty for every col­lege apart­ment. By the time you have moved into an apart­ment, you would have been most like­ly old enough to legal­ly drink, so instead of drink­ing cheap liquor, you will resort to drink­ing cheap wine. You will be sur­prised at how many times you will actu­al­ly need a wine open­er. Whether you are try­ing to cook a nice pas­ta din­ner for your room­mates with red wine or enjoy­ing a glass or two of white wine while hang­ing out with friends, you will def­i­nite­ly be hap­py that you brought one.

2. Inspi­ra­tional posters

Every­one in a col­lege dorm room hangs posters up on their wall; they’re most like­ly posters from their favorite movie, actor or sports team. How­ev­er, when you move into an apart­ment, you prob­a­bly want to upgrade those posters to reflect your upgrad­ed liv­ing arrange­ment. Inspi­ra­tional posters or wall decals will make you feel like a cham­pi­on upper­class­man. These posters will help you stay sane dur­ing finals week as well because, let’s be hon­est, you will need a pep talk before you take on that full week of exams and papers.

3. Cof­fee maker

Hav­ing a cof­fee mak­er at your apart­ment will be a life saver. When you lived on cam­pus, your din­ing hall prob­a­bly had free cof­fee that you could drink when­ev­er you want­ed. How­ev­er, now that you’re liv­ing in an apart­ment, you’ll need to make your own. Whether you need a jolt of caf­feine for your 8 a.m. class, a mid-after­noon pick-me-up or some­thing to help you pull an all-nighter, you will be glad that you have that cof­fee mak­er to help you. You’ll also save a lot of mon­ey by mak­ing your own cof­fee instead of spend­ing around $5 or $6 on your favorite Star­bucks or Dunkin’ Donuts drink every day.

4. Clean­ing supplies

Any clean­ing sup­plies, espe­cial­ly mul­ti­pur­pose wipes, are essen­tial for any home, espe­cial­ly a col­lege apart­ment. Mul­ti­pur­pose wipes are great for an easy and quick clean up when you are in a hur­ry or when you’re feel­ing lazy. Oth­er sim­ple clean­ing sup­plies such as a broom and vac­u­um will also become your most handy clean­ing tools because they allow for a quick cleanup before and after that row­dy night with your friends.

5. Stor­age

Just like when you moved into a dorm, you will need a lot of stor­age for your first apart­ment. Most first apart­ments for col­lege stu­dents are small and cramped, which is why they are so afford­able for those on a strict bud­get, so you are going to want a lot of stor­age space to keep all of your belong­ings. Bring along that under-the-bed stor­age from your dorm room and any stor­age bins you had as well. You will need to store things that you nev­er thought you would have to, such as dif­fer­ent clothes for the chang­ing sea­sons, pots and pans that don’t fit in your kitchen, extra bed­ding and any oth­er excess stuff that you and your room­mates brought mul­ti­ple sets of.

6. Dry erase board

Dry erase boards will become your best friend in your apart­ment. You and your room­mates can use them for basi­cal­ly any­thing such as gro­cery lists, a cal­en­dar of upcom­ing events to keep track of everyone’s hec­tic sched­ules, a chore list for every­one in the apart­ment to make sure they are doing their part to help keep the apart­ment nice and tidy, and even lit­tle reminder notes to remind your­selves of any upcom­ing home­work, projects or the dread­ed par­ents visits.

7. Tool kit

A tool kit will be your sav­ing grace when­ev­er any­thing breaks in your new apart­ment, and things will break at one point or anoth­er. Whether you have a leaky faucet, a bro­ken chair leg or just some inspi­ra­tional posters that need to be hung, you will need a tool kit for most­ly any­thing. You want to be pre­pared for basi­cal­ly any­thing that goes wrong in your apart­ment so you don’t have to rely on your land­lord all of the time.