Moving to College: A How To Guide

By the time you read this, I’ll have moved back to my cozy place in London (Ontario). You can probably imagine that I’m in full-fledged packing mode. Literally, grabbing every single thing that I own and putting it into 1 of 9 boxes, hoping that I’ve magically packed the boxes in a clever way (i.e. nothing will break).

In reality, I’m just lying on my bed; sick, tired, and definitely not packing. I haven’t even bought the things that I need to pack yet.

So I guess it’s safe to say that Step 1 is to actually, at some point before you have to move to college, buy whatever it is that you need to buy. Yes. Leave it to me to explain the obvious.

Step 2: Pack everything into boxes, stack boxes neatly.

Don’t just throw everything into the car – it will take you forever to unpack later on. If you’re driving, put everything into boxes and stack them on top of each other in the car/van/truck. Pack tightly. If you’re really organized, label the boxes by room. Stacking saves space, takes up less space in your vehicle, and minimizes sliding as you drive. Because aint nobody got time for broken dishes.

Do it like this.

Step 3: Travel.

Go to college! Stock up on your favorite music (upbeat is preferable during long drives or flights in my opinion) and just go. Go. Go. Just…go. (Ehem, skip to 2:54. Or don’t, because Russell Peters is still hilarious).

Step 4: Clean absolutely everything.

Whether you’re moving into a new place, moving back to an old place that you subletted over the summer, or you’re subletting from somebody else, you’re going to have to clean. You cannot get around this. Layers of dust everywhere, mysterious things on the floor, questionable products left in the fridge. Just cry once – get rid of all the disgusting in one go.

Step 5: Unpack and organize everything.

No, you will not organize it later. Then you won’t be able to find what you need when school starts and everything will be a disaster and you will be even more upset than you would have been if you had just organized everything in the first place. Unless, of course, you are one of those gifted people who can still find everything no matter how messy your room is, put your stuff where it belongs!