By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed.
What college students need for dorms varies a lot and depends on a student’s preference, living situation, and personal needs. However, there are a few nonessentials I recommend all college students living on campus have in their dorm rooms to improve their academic experience.
In this blog post, I share 11 essentials that college students need for dorms. The tips apply to most students – no matter their circumstances or living situation. The items in the list are also especially helpful for students with ADHD. I indicate the scenarios where a variation of my recommendation might be even more helpful for people with ADHD.
What College Students Need for Dorms (11 Essentials to Make Learning Easier in College)
The following items can improve the efficiency, organization, and comfort of a college student’s dorm room study space.
1. Visible Phsycial Calendar
I recommend that college students use a digital calendar to create and manage their daily, weekly, and monthly schedules. Here is my tutorial on how to create a school schedule using Google Calendar.
However, a key component of time management involves making time visible. And there is really no better way to do that with a hanging calendar.
Hanging a monthly calendar on your wall, or using a large desk pad calendar, enables you to visualize days and weeks easier than you can by scrolling through a calendar that’s minimized on a small screen.
I’m not suggesting you use a hanging wall calendar to manage your day-to-day life. As I said, that’s better done in a digital calendar. Instead, the point of hanging a simple monthly calendar is to be able to glance up quickly from your workspace and get a sense of where you are in time, how many days are left in the week, how many days before the weekend, how many days before something is due, how many days left before college break, etc.
The human brain is notorious for imagining time to be longer than it is. A hanging calendar allows you to see the big picture of a month at a glance.
Another benefit of hanging a wall calendar is it establishes an area of your dorm room as a study space.
Dorm rooms are small, and if you’re sharing your space with a roommate, they are often very cluttered. It’s important to create a space in your dorm room that looks and feels like a place of focus.
Our brains rely on clear visual cues to let us know what we should be doing in a particular space. For example, when we see a refrigerator in a room, we know that’s the place we eat, and that can trigger our hunger. When we see a bed, we know that’s the place we sleep, and we often become more tired when we’re in our bedroom. The same rule applies to creating a study space that triggers your brain to switch into a focus mode.
2. A Clear Workspace
College dorm rooms come with some kind of desk. In many cases, this is more like a table with a single shallow drawer in the middle. Because space is limited in college dorm rooms, you may be tempted to use this table/desk to store other things like laundry, water bottles, makeup, gaming accessories, and other objects unrelated to studying.
But keeping your desk space clear of anything unrelated to schoolwork is essential to training your focus. If you use your desk for anything else besides working and studying, you’re creating mixed signals to your brain about what that space is for. In other words, if you use your study space to game, you will train your brain to expect and crave a gaming session when you sit down to do your assignments.
You might think this isn’t a big deal, but it is.
Keep your work and study space only for working and studying. For all other activities, use a common room in your dorm or another space on campus. Or — dare I say it — sit on the floor (use a floor pillow like this if you want).
3. School Supplies Basket
I’ve already mentioned this, but dorm room desks are more like tables than anything else. There’s usually only a small single drawer, if any, and the workspace is usually quite small.
Because of the small desk size, I suggest college students use a basket or box to hold school supplies not used daily. You can keep a pencil holder or small desk organization caddy like this one on your desk, but everything else is probably best left stored in a basket under your desk.
School supplies you likely need in your college dorm:
- Sticky notes
- Index cards (more on that later)
- Extra pens and pencils
- Stapler
- Extra paper if you’re using a three-ring binder
- Sharpies
- Whiteout
- Highlighters
- Duck tape
- Blank paper
- Whiteboard and dry-erase markers
4. Hanging Command Center
Similar to my suggestion of hanging a wall calendar is my suggestion for college students to create some kind of hanging command center on the wall near their workspace.
Again, our brain relies on visual cues from our environment to indicate what kind of work we do in a space. When we enhance our workspace with a simple command center near our desk, we are cueing our brain to lock in and focus.
A command center can be anything from a corkboard/whiteboard combo to a pegboard hung using command strips.
Why do college students need a command center in their dorms? Because creating a centralized location where you can view information at a glance without opening an app or flipping open to a page in a notebook is essential for college organization and productivity.
You can hang your calendar from your command center or post your weekly class schedule or team practice schedule using a thumbtack on a corkboard. You can also use the command center to post dining hall hours or work hours if you have a college job, and the phone number and extension of your college advisor.
Students with AHD: If you have ADHD, a command center is essential. I recommend college students with ADHD create a command center that also has 1-2 hooks, in addition to a corkboard or magnetized surface. Hooks are excellent for hanging keys and lanyards, and corkboards/magnetized surfaces are ideal for keeping important papers front and center.
5. Flashcards / Index Cards (for Studying with Active Recall)
College students need index cards in their dorms. Why? Because as I explain in my podcast episode called 5 Active Recall Study Methods, flashcards are one of the most effective ways to study.
Active recall study methods are the only study methods that work. (Most students use passive recall study methods because those feel easier.) Active recall study strategies can be challenging and uncomfortable. But when done correctly, they lead to greater knowledge retention in less time. (Yes, please!)
Many digital apps allow you to create digital flashcards, but I don’t recommend creating or using digital apps for anything except a final review session. Making your own flashcards on index cards takes longer than borrowing another student’s flashcards or using a digital app, but I promise you it’s more effective.
Making our own flashcards adds elements to the study process that increase our understanding and retention of the material. Gathering the information to write on the flashcards, putting definitions and descriptions in our own words, and thinking about the material as we write it by hand are all steps of the learning process. Borrowing other people’s flashcards or using ones made digitally bypass these crucial steps. That’s the exact opposite of what we want.
Students with ADHD: Index cards work wonderfully for students with ADHD because they involve a kinesthetic element that digital cards don’t have. More specifically, using paper-based index cards to study enables you to manipulate the index cards on a surface in front of you and use them in different ways. Here are 10 ways to use index cards to study.
If you frequently lose your index cards or they end up at the bottom of your backpack, use a thick elastic band to bind them together. Store them in the smaller front pouch of your backpack so they won’t get squished and lost. You can also store your flashcards in a clear or mesh zip-up pencil case.
I suggest that students use 3 x 5 index cards for most content. You can also cut those in half if you’re making index cards for simple vocabulary terms.
6. Desk Lamp
Dorm lighting is notoriously awful. Usually, dorm rooms have only one or two fluorescent overhead lights. This type of lighting is not ideal for creating a vibe for studying.
I suggest that college students get a desk lamp to use while studying and doing assignments. Be intentional about what kind of light bulb you use, as different light bulb temperatures create different environments and moods.
A warm-temperature light bulb creates a library-esque vibe. A cool light bulb is more like a laboratory or doctor’s office. “Natural light”l light bulbs are a good choice for work and study spaces because they strike a balance between cozy and concentration.
7. Laptop Stand
Laptops are great and we love them for their convenience, but they are terrible for our backs and necks. A simple laptop stand that you leave on your dorm room workspace can make a huge difference in your posture and comfort while studying.
If you don’t want to buy a laptop stand, you can use an upside-down box or anything that raises your laptop to a height that’s ergonomically appropriate for your body line of vision.
8. Scratchpad Inbox
A scratch pad inbox can improve your concentration and increase how long you can focus.
This sounds fancier than it is. A scratch pad inbox is the name I give to a simple pad of paper that you leave on your workspace while you are studying and doing your homework.
Let me explain: It’s super common to have random thoughts and ideas pop into our heads while working and studying. This is especially common when we are working on something challenging. (You know, when you’re in the middle of writing an analytical essay you suddenly remember you need to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer? Yep. Me too.)
Intrusive thoughts dramatically disrupt our concentration. Having a scratch pad inbox where you jot down these thoughts and “urgent” ideas as they pop into your head allows your brain to say, “Ok, I wrote that down so I can let that go and get back to work.”
Students with ADHD: You’ve got to try this strategy. Definitely use paper and pen for your inbox, and not your phone Notes app.
9. A Good Chair
College students need a good chair in their dorms. The chair that comes with your desk is going to be a hard and uncomfortable chair similar to those you might find discounted in an antique store.
It’s not reasonable for all students to go out and buy an office chair, but if that’s possible for you, I recommend doing so. If that’s not possible, you can modify your dorm room chair to make it more comfortable and conducive to studying.
If you’re tall, you may need to put your chair on blocks to raise it. Maybe you need to add a lumbar support pad. At the very least, add a cushion to the seat.
I can’t state this enough, but our environments and our physical state (hunger, pain, discomfort, thirst, awakeness, etc.) have a massive influence on our concentration and motivation. If you are uncomfortable in your chair, you’ll begin to associate your study space with pain and discomfort. This is obviously not a good thing and it’s something that can easily be addressed with a better chair or simple modifications to the chair you have.
Students with ADHD: I suggest investing in a chair that swivels or rocks. You may also consider getting a chair that has a large enough seat for you to sit cross-legged or squat, as is the preference of many of my students with ADHD.
10. Homework Planner
College students need a homework planner or assignment notebook. (Same thing.) I’m well aware that all of your assignments are posted in your learning management system, but that learning management system (LMS) does not have the same function as an assignment notebook.
Many of my students resist an assignment notebook because they swear they can just use their LMS, but here is how a learning management system fails:
The only things inside your learning management system are things posted by your professors. As a college student, you will have many tasks and responsibilities that go beyond what your professors assign you.
The two most significant tasks you need to do as a college student, which are not effectively managed by your LMS, is a) study sessions and b) micro steps to larger projects.
In other words, your teacher may post an assignment that says “test on Friday.” Cool. But you need a place to write down “study for test” on the multiple days leading up to the actual test. You would write these study sessions in your assignment notebook.
Another example is when your professor assigns a long-term project such as an essay. They may post an assignment that says “essay due on Monday.” Cool. But where are you going to write down the individual steps that you need to do to write your essay? For example, do research, make outline, write draft, and revise. These are individual steps of the larger assignment and these individual steps need to go on specific days in your assignment notebook so they get done.
When it comes to choosing an assignment notebook, simpler is better. Choose one that you like, is the correct size for your needs, has the right binding for your preference, and has at least a weekly overview with a separate section for each day of the week.
11. Upright Storage/Magazine File
Paper piles and general clutter build up fast in college dorms. As I explained in tip number one, it’s important to have a clear study space and to keep your desk neat – and nothing ruins this vibe faster than messy papers.
An upright vertical magazine storage bin can be a great solution for keeping your desk surface clear and your materials organized.
Something like this is perfect for storing folders, textbooks, notebooks, your scratchpad inbox, your assignment notebook, and anything else that has a tendency to sprawl across your desk and take up space.
Final Thoughts About What College Students Need for Dorms
As I said at the top of this post, what college students need for dorms really does depend on a student’s unique needs and preferences. For example, an athlete might need a large storage bin to contain all their sports gear. A student who uses assistive technology might need a different workspace setup to accommodate that technology. A student in a wheelchair might need a taller desk.
But with that said, the 11 items in this list can be helpful to most students in college. Remember: the items in this list are intended to promote focus and organization, which has a direct impact on academic performance. If I were to create a list of everything a college student needs for their dorm, there would be closer to 1000 things on this list — including snacks and earplugs!
If you’re looking for additional ideas for how to organize your space, here’s my list of 100 organization ideas for students. The tips are ideal for college students living in dorms.
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