When preparing for the start of your first semester at Uni, you will need to purchase a few basic academic supplies to get you started. Whether you prefer pen and paper, or digital technology, you’ll need some essential accessories including a fresh set of stationery for lectures and tools to keep yourself organised so you can stay on track of your coursework and deadlines. Here is a list of back to school essentials that every University student needs:
A good quality laptop is a must-have for all Uni students and doesn’t have to cost you a fortune. You’ll need a laptop designed for doing several tasks at once, such as essay writing and researching with several tabs open at once. You’ll likely also use it for watching Netflix in your spare time, rather than carting your TV all the way to Uni, so you’ll need a laptop with a decent processor. Currys currently have a great little Lenovo Ideapad 320s laptop for just under £300, that does everything that the more expensive brands of laptop can do, for a considerably lower price.
The Lenovo Ideapad is slimline, has a 14-inch screen and is light enough to transport easily. With an Intel Pentium Processor, 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD memory and Windows 10 as standard, this nifty laptop has all you’ll need for Uni. You will need to purchase Microsoft Office separately, however, as a student you may be able to get Microsoft Word free through your University, so ask around. This is one of the most important back to school essentials!
A student planner is an essential tool for Uni students to stay organised. Using the old school method of writing everything down, students can keep a record of their deadlines, to-do lists and other key information they need to remember in their planner. The Palgrave Student Planner is a best-seller with students and offers much more than a traditional academic diary.
This planner includes study skills, diary pages, money saving tips, useful contacts, space for your timetable and note pages, as a well as grammar tips and document holders. Using a planner like this will help you stay organised throughout the semester so you can plan and manage your time effectively and it will cost you under £10 online!
Notebooks are essential for those students who like to take hand-written notes during lectures. My personal favourite is the A4 Pukka Project Book which has movable plastic dividers, so you can keep notes from different modules separate, without the need for several different notebooks.
This project book has 80gsm high quality paper which can stand even heavy handed notetakers and will not transfer your highlighter pen through to the next paper. The pages are ruled with margins and come already hole-punched and perforated for easy removal into files. Pukka Project Books also come in A5 size for those who want a smaller notebook to carry around. The regular A4 version will cost you around £5, but it is well worth it and should last you the semester. This is one of the best back to school essentials.
Come revision time, highlighters are an essential item of stationery for all Uni students. Stabilo Boss Original highlighters are Europe’s best-selling highlighters and you won’t find anything better on the market! These pens never seem to run out, with 4-hour dry-out protection, even if you accidentally leave the lid off.
If they ever do show signs of giving out, these highlighters are also refillable and they come in nine different fluorescent colours and now six pastel colours too. They are priced at around £5 for a pack of four, but you won’t regret this purchase as they will far out last the cheaper brands.
These brightly coloured, small squares of paper with a built-in glue strip on the back, serve multiple functions when studying or revising. Post-it notes are great for visual learners as you can use them to write down difficult to remember facts and you can then stick them around your room or on your fridge to jog your memory. You can also use them to create mind-maps if you write brief notes about a topic on them and then you can display them on your wall.
Post-it notes are also a good way to plan an essay, as you can write down key points and then play around with re-ordering them until you find a structure you like. Many people also use post-its for to-do lists, and as bookmarks. They also come in smaller index tab size which may be better if you’re using them to highlight key parts of texts. This simple yet effective item of stationery is also very cheap, with a cube of post-its costing under £2! Definitely consider these as some of your back to school essentials!
Whatever you do, when you write an essay at Uni, you must remember to back it up! To avoid the drama of losing an essay from your computer the day before it’s due, you should make sure that you back all your work up on a USB stick. Flash drives are also useful for transferring files between different computers, so you can pick up where you left off on your laptop at home and finish your essay in the library if you want. You can also use them to print documents from Uni computers to make the most of your allocated printer credits.
USB sticks can carry plenty of data and the amount is increasing year on year as technology advances. You want to choose one with a strong build, preferably without a lid to lose, and with enough storage space for all your work. A good one is the SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 64GB which will cost you around £15 on Amazon. If you need a device with more space, such as for large video files, you can also purchase external hard drives with ITB of storage space for between £40-£50 online. You’ll definitely want this as one of your back to school essentials.
When you go to Uni, it is important that you keep all your important documents and loose pieces of paper such as lecture handouts, organised and together. You should keep a file of important documents such as any Uni correspondence, your passport if you brought it along for ID, your student accommodation contract and any insurance documents, so they are all in one place if and when you need to access them.
If you write hand-written notes, you should also try to keep a box file or lever arch file for each module you study, which will contain all your lecture notes, handouts and photocopies together, so that it will be easier to find everything when it comes to revising or completing your coursework. If you use a lever arch file, you can either hole punch them or use plastic wallets to keep them secure in the file and you can also use dividers to separate different topics. If you use digital devices to take notes, you should make sure that you keep your documents organised into relevant files so they are more easily accessible.
These are just some of the basic back to school essentials that I think every Uni student needs. Also remember to take a pen to your lecture; preferably a biro so you can write quickly and without smudging your work. You don’t want to be that one person who has to borrow a pen on your first day!
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