Back To School Essentials

Back to School Time!

     So whether you like it or not, it's back to school time! I personally have always loved school and loved organizing and the whole fresh notebooks thing. I think its gotten better over the years what with the new additions I got to add to my school supplies as well as all of the tricks I have learned. I almost wish I could redo high school just so that I could actually study and take notes correctly; there were so many things I learned just in the first semester of my first year of college that it would have made high school classes that much easier. But in any case, I thought it would be fun to talk about my school essentials and maybe give you guys some ideas on what to get in all of these sales :) Just as a note, these are things I use throughout the day.

Essentials:

     a bag or backpack - I will either use a backpack if I need to carry a lot or an over the shoulder bag if I only need a few items for the day. I go between two options: I have my purple L. L. Bean backpack that has three pockets plus a built in laptop sleeve so that my computer is nice and protected! The other option that I like is my Vera Bradley Get Carried Away Tote which is nice because it has a wide opening, a few pockets on the outside and nice strong handles. This is great for when I have only a few things to bring and I don't need my laptop.


      
     water bottle - I literally drink water all day long and I ALWAYS have either my teal or pink metal water bottle with me wherever I go. So for that reason, it is an essential.

     Cliff bars or peanut butter crackers - As with drinking water all day long, I also usually have food with me all day. I have Hypoglycemia and what that basically means for me, is that if I do not keep my blood sugar at an even level throughout the day, then I get sugar crashes and those lead to headaches, which turn into migraines and that means that I basically am stuck in bed for the rest of the day. Doesn't sound too appealing does it? So to insure that that doesn't happen, I keep high-protein stacks like Cliff bars and peanut-butter crackers with me to eat when I get hungry in between meals.




     my keys/wristlet - Most people in college carry a wristlet with all of their cards, money, their ID and their keys on it instead of a big wallet, since we need IDs to get into our dorm rooms as well as for our meal plan if we have one. I personally find a little wristlet works the best because it fits in many of my pants pockets and that way I can have it on me at all times. Usually I will go to the Vera Bradley outlet and stock up on them for $5 each! I have a lot of things inside my wristlet like some cards, cash, and punch cards. As for the outside I just keep my belay clip, my keys, the little rewards cards, and a cute little light up owl keychain :).




     weekly/monthly agenda - An ABSOLUTE essential for me. I use this thing sooooo much but ironically I only use the monthly, "at-a-glance" section to write all of my assignments. It allows me to see just how much time I have to complete an assignment, instead of just going week to week. As an art student, we have mainly project-based assignments and you have to do a lot of time management. There aren't just reading assignments or a few tests, you have on-going assignments that have deadlines and you need to know how much time you have to complete them. Personally I find myself being able to get everything done on time or in advanced when I use my agenda like this. Luckily for me this year, I found monthly agenda that does not include the week to week detail pages so I don't waste all that paper!!



     large calender - Along with a medium monthly agenda that I carry with me in my bag, I also hang a large calender in my dorm room and mark all of my assignments on it as well. This is good for a couple of reasons. First of all, I don't have to go reach into my bag every time I want to check my assignments. Another really good reason to have this hanging up, is that it basically makes you aware of your assignments all of the time. It allows you to keep everything you have in the back of your mind because you are glancing at it so much. I will say that it is an extra step to make sure that my small agenda and big calender are always in sync, but if it was too much of a hassle I definitely wouldn't still be using both calenders after 4 semesters.






     pencil pouch - I also carry my pencil pouch with me in my bag everyday. As you can see in the picture, its a long zipper pouch with some teal, purple, pink and green stripes.

        gel, clicker pens - I am for some reason very particular about my writing pens. I like them to have a thick line with no "breaks." Like I don't like writing with a pen that leaves little bald patches in my writing; it just bugs me.

        mechanical pencils - I use pens a lot but when I do actually use a pencil, I only really like using mechanical pencils. They are usually just yellow, HB/2B(#2) Bic mechanical pencils. I do love mechanical pencils that look like the old school regular pencils with fun designs, but only when they are discounted.

        flash drive - As a Graphic Design/Digital Media student I always am bringing my work back and forth from my laptop to the big design lab Macs. So obviously I need to have a way to transport it and a 8GB or 16GB flash drive is nice and large enough to keep lots of files on hand; the 2GB's fill up pretty fast.

     textbooks - This can't be too much of a surprise. For me my books tend to be about design and typography, though. For this upcoming Fall semester, my textbooks are Typographic Web Design, Designing Type, and Psychology: An Exploration.


     sketchbook - Whether it's for my class or because I get inspired, I always have a sketchbook or several in my dorm room/backpack.

     drawing pencil/sharpie - Also for most classes, I either need drawing pencils or sharpies, or I will use these and other drawing materials in my sketch book.

     any other art supplies for classes - Usually this consists of a sketchbook for each class; if it is a Fine Arts course, I usually need a some sort of pad of paper; drawing or painting media; tape; scissors; objects to sketch; basically I had a lot of stuff in my room Freshman Year. I also have software and the nice paper from the Design Lab at my school for my electronic art classes.




     spiral-bound notebook or composition book - Even though I type my papers and take notes on my laptop, something about outlining on pieces of paper works best for me. I usually can do everything in one note book and just use it for all of my classes where I have to write out a presentation or essay.

     non-zip binders - Since 6th grade, I have used the same system to hold my assignment sheets, notes, and anything else I get from my classes. I keep two hard plastic binders which I will try and switch out every other day. So either I will have all of papers for my academic classes in one and studio classes in another, or all my work for my more paper heavy classes in one and less paper heavy classes in another. Although now that a lot of my actual work is on the computer now, I still get hard copies of assignments from teachers. So what I like to do is to have all the sheets hole punched and usually I will put the newest sheets on top.




     folders, one for each class - Inside each plastic binder I keep a folder for each class. Anything that is not hole punched or a finished assignment will be put in the folder for that class. I kind of use these as dividers so my binders usually consist of a folder, class work, another folder for a second class, and sheets for that second class, and so on. This is part of the same system from 6th grade.








     Macbook Pro 15" - *Heavenly singing* My Baby! My Macbook Pro is a freaking god sent; I love this thing. Not only is it good for normal stuff like note taking, surfing the web, and listening to music, I do a lot of my artwork on this thing. I have a few programs that I am required to use for my classes too.

        Photoshop - A photo editing software, this is usually used for Digital Media classes but is also used in my other classes as well.

        Illustrator - A cross between a photo editing software with more illustrative options, I usually use this in my Graphic Design classes.

        InDesign - Mainly used for making great looking documents, posters and the like, this is used in both my Graphic Design and Typography classes.


     Wacom Bamboo drawing tablet - This little baby is amazing for drawing more accurately on my computer and I use it a lot for Digital Media assignments. I wish I had this earlier in life, you just plug it into the computer and then you can draw with a stylus and make amazing illustrations as well as photo edit with it.




     cell phone - And of course I have to have my phone with me at all times, checking up on friends, staying in contact with the parents, making sure I get to class on time, checking the weather... I'm pretty sure most people would say this is an essential and will know why. A cell phone of any sort is pretty much crucial in 2013.






     And those are all of my essentials. I know it seems like a lot but I mean it's all going in my backpack so it gets a little smaller in size and I really do use all these things on a regular, if not daily, basis. I hope you guys enjoyed this post and I really look forward to knowing what everyone else's essentials are; let me know in the comments! Hope everyone is excited for back to school in some shape or form and I'll talk to you guys soon :D Follow my blog if you'd like to make me happy!