Fall 2013 Back to School Must-have's for Nontrads - What's Hot?

Nontraditional students, what would YOU like to suggest for this year's hot Must-have's for Nontrads?

Here are some old and new ideas:

#1. A new backpack. My idea is a medium-sized one. My favorite color is blue, but a green one would be OK. You could decorate it with some fun patches or pins if you like. OR a rolling backpack.

#2. An iPhone or SmartPhone. A must nowadays. Make sure you have some great apps for it too, or know where they are, like an alarm clock, scheduler, etc. Ask your fellow students what apps to put on there. And let me know what they say. I'd love to blog about that too.

And make sure you turn the volume off for class. Some teachers are sticklers about this. They DON'T want to hear your phone ring when they are talking. Just saying.

#3. A Hoodie. The young people love them. You want to blend in. It's a no-brainer. But wait until Fall if you get hot easily.

#4. Some new clothes. I know, it's easy to scrimp in the fashion department when you have a lot of other bills. But try at least getting one or two new outfits if at all possible. I promise you, the other students will be doing it. Ask somebody in the clothing department to help you pick the clothing out, if you are clueless like me, that is.

#5. Cool, walkable shoes. Ditto.

#6. A backup service. On the cloud (think: BackBlaze) or on another hard drive or thumb drive. Don't risk losing a final report. Back it up.

#7. Water/lunch/food money/your Student ID - goes without saying, really.

 #8. A Digital e-Book Reader in case you have your books in digital format. (I like Kindle, but of course there is Nook plus lots of others to choose from...) You can also use your iPad or Phone.

#9.  A notebook for each class. Don't try to bundle them together - - you may jumble your notes together. Talking about notes - - take them by hand OR record your lectures with a digital recorder.


#10. A copy of a campus map (digital or not), your class locations and schedule, phone numbers and/or Facebook locations of at least two class members (for each class - - just in case)... plus?

Other ideas?

Give me your best suggestions for more on this list. What would YOU suggest?

-Betsyanne - former Nontraditional Student in Education. What stories I could tell you. :-) I will try to get my book together soon. Later!

There are some more suggestions here:

What to bring in your backpack the first day of classes

Your college backpack - What is in it?  

Ideas for saving money at school

(non-material things) Other things to have for success in school

And here are some of my Nontrad links:

The Nontrad site and blog

Join Nontrads on Facebook

 Nontrads on Yahoo

 Nontrads on Twitter