Electronics Buying Guide for the College Bound Student - Working Accessories
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My neighbor graduated college the year before I started, and told me that the USB thumb drives were the greatest thing in the world for school. My first semester I learned the truth of this very quickly. I had a programming class for which we had weekly programming assignments. I was in the professor's office almost every week trying to figure out why my solution wasn't working. I had to either bring my whole computer and lug it across campus, or simply throw it on the USB drive, put that into my pocket and load it onto the professor's computer.
I got the Sandisk U3 Titanium drive. This is the one I recommend. The U3 allows you to install applications onto the drive and have them run off of it. It's nice if you have some time to kill; you can go load up a quick game or finish a paper and not worry about needing a program with which to open your paper on the computer.
Another reason I recommend the Titanium is because mine has taken a beating and is still running perfectly. I can run over it in my car without problems. The head of the drive slides back into the shell for further protection, which is what sold me on it. I always end up stepping on the heads of my USB cords and spend the next 20 minutes trying to get them back into shape.
One device I just picked up this last semester was a PDA phone. I'm sure that most college aged kids have phones, so I won't go into how great a phone is to have while at college, but I'll point out the PDA functionality. Mine has built in Wi-Fi. Since most colleges have Wi-Fi all over campus, a student with a Wi-Fi phone can access the Internet while going to class, and check email in some rather boring classes. Okay, college kids might not have emergency emails, but being able to check email isn't bad.
I put some games on my PDA phone, too, for down time. I think the parts that helped me out the most were the calendar, reminders and MS Money for Pocket PC. While I've never been one to use those assignment notebooks or write down dates, I found myself using the calendar on my phone, and synchronizing it with Outlook on my computer. I have the same issues with my finances. I don't balance my accounts; I just kind of have a rough estimate of how much money I have in each account. With Microsoft Money, I would just add in the transactions as I did them. I am much more organized with my PDA phone.
Depending on your major and the classes it requires at your school, you may need a good graphing calculator. I have used a TI-83 and also a TI-89 for my calculus classes. The TI-89 is a dream come true for engineers. It will help you in all of your science and engineering classes. Your teacher might not allow it on test and quizzes and not recommend it for homework, but it is a truly great asset. Other classes will let you use it on most tests and homework. It is also a really great way to check your answers to make sure you are doing the work correctly. There are many different manufacturers that make graphing calculators so go with what is recommended or what you know how to use.
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