5 Things First-Year Students Always Forget to Pack
You’ve been going over the list for weeks. Clothes, laptop, nice photos for the wall, your best headphones. Perhaps you have a list and have searched for the best ‘what to take to uni’ advice on the internet more than once. Yet still, so many students forget to pack some of the most essential university items they’ll use every day. It’s rarely the big stuff. It’s often things you need more than one of, or such small items that you’d never even think to add them to your basket.
Here are the five items we think are the easiest to leave off your list, and how you can make sure you’re not left without when arriving at your new student accommodation.
1. Enough Pillows
It’s very easy to pack one pillow and assume it’s enough. In reality, most of us find that having a little nest is a nice thing to have. It’s not a massive thing to overlook (providing you didn’t forget your pillows altogether), but it will be annoying if you have to use a rolled-up hoodie on night one. It may be about preference more than anything, but it helps to have a few pillows to hand either way.
2. A Tin Opener
You’ve got the beans and the bowl, but nothing to open that pesky tin with! It’s the type of item you can borrow from a friend for a while, but you’ll eventually need one of your own. It’s a small item, easy to overlook when you’re packing clothes and chargers and everything that feels more urgent.
3. Oven Gloves
Pots and pans tend to make the list. What you use to take them out of the oven often doesn’t. Without one, you’re reaching for a tea towel or whatever’s within arm’s length, which works until it doesn’t. It’s a small thing to grab, right up until you don’t have one and dinner’s already in.
4. A Chopping Board
Please don’t start cutting things up on a worktop. Ideally, you’d have a set of chopping boards you can use for preparing certain items. Just one is enough, though, provided you wash it after each use.
5. Bedding that Fits
Bringing bedding from home sounds sensible, until you realise your Uni bed is a different size to the one you’re used to. Single, small double, whatever it is, it doesn’t always match what you packed, and it’s not the ideal thing to discover on your first night. If you’re unsure what size bed you’re going to have, please contact your property team ahead of your arrival.
What’s the Solution?
None of this is really about being disorganised. These are the small items that only become obvious once you’re already moved in, often when it’s too late to nip to the shops, especially if you don’t know the area yet or don’t have a car to get to one.
As it happens, everything on this list is included in UNPACKED’s packs. We’ve seen them land at our own properties often enough to know that’s not just a promise on a website; it’s what turns up in the box.