Tech Essentials Checklist for College Bound Students

The page on the family calendar may be labeled August but, whenever I see that word, my mind reads back-to-school shopping. The countdown is now merely days, no longer months, until my husband and I drop off our youngest at college. Shopping for freshman year for a college bound kid has been unlike any other that has gone before and, although we are now fairly organized, one final line on the dorm to-do list remains. I want to sit down with our daughter and review the technology she is taking with her and upgrade or adjust where needed.

Technology for college kids

If you have a teenager at home, you already know how dependent he is on tech devices for both his social and academic life. Our kids going off to college will take their handhelds and their habits onto campus and will immediately plug into the college’s network. (BTW, one bit of advice is to have the phone number and email address of the IT department handy in case the process is not exactly seamless.)

I envision my daughter on move-in day carrying a box up the stairs to her dorm room with as much care as if she was holding a beating heart for an organ transplant. Inside will be a laptop, chargers, surge protector, printer, USB drive, a portable external drive, a tablet with bluetooth enabled keyboard, earbuds and noise-cancelling headphones. Her smart phone will be in her back pocket.

She will set up her desk while my husband and I struggle to make up the twin bed in the crowded space.

Though her collection of electronic gadgets may sound excessive, on this subject, she is a typical college student: According to this story in The Chronicle of Higher Education: 

In a survey conducted this year by the education-technology organization Educause, 76 percent of undergraduates reported owning a smart phone, an increase of 14 percentage points compared with the previous year. Fifty-eight percent said they owned at least three Internet-capable devices.

As a result, this has led to explosive growth in the demand on Internet at schools:

Campus-technology officials say they struggle to maintain and expand wireless-network capacity in heavily taxed locations, such as lecture halls, common areas, and sports venues. They are excited about integrating wireless technology into classroom learning, but worry about safeguarding personal and research data increasingly viewed on mobile devices. Underscoring their concerns are budget realities and an obligation to transparency and collaboration.

How about in your family? What technology and devices will your student take with them to college in the fall?

About Grown and Flown

Mary Dell Harrington and Lisa (Endlich) Heffernan are the co-founders of Grown and Flown the #1 site for parents of teens, college students and young adults, reaching millions of parents every month. They are writers (Lisa is a New York Times bestselling author), moms, wives and friends. They started the Grown and Flown Parents Facebook Group and are co-authors of Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults (Flatiron Books) now in paperback.

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