Moving Out of the Dorms? Ship Your Books and CDs Home

Moving out of the dorms for the summer can be an enormous operation. Hundreds of thousands of college students live in dorms at thousands of colleges in the United States. Over the past few decades, what students store in their dorm rooms has grown--and media is a huge part of that clutter.

Today's college student has a laptop, a cell phone, an iPod or MP3 player, perhaps a Blackberry, school books, DVDs, and CDs. As final exams come close, students are swamped with final projects, end-of-semester term papers, exams, and then--the dreaded move out. Most colleges require students to vacate the dorms within forty-eight hours of the last exam. By the time a student completes his or her last exam they've most likely not slept for two days. That final forty-eight hour move out time needs to be managed well for a successful transition home.

Most college towns have a little-known secret: the U.S. Post Office will ship books, papers, CDs, DVDs, videotapes, and any printed material as "Media Mail" for a fraction of the cost of regular items. The following step-by-step instructions can make any student's dorm move-out a less stressful event:

1. Pull out all media--printed material and CD/DVD/Video--that you absolutely, positively, do not need until you get home for the summer. Find a box--the cleaning crew in the dorm will often have spare boxes from shipments of paper towels--and package all the media material carefully.

2. DO NOT load more than about forty pounds into any single box. Most boxes can't handle much more than this. Most dorms have an old-fashioned doctor's scale in the bathroom. Weigh your package there. If you live in a men's dorm and there's no scale, ask a female friend in a female dorm if she knows someone with a scale. Chances are good that she does.

3. Once you've collected all of your media, get a ride to the local post office. Send the package Media Mail, insured, with delivery confirmation.

4. DO NOT try to do this on the last day of finals week. Everyone else will be mailing their packages home at that time. Prime time for shipping in college towns is the week before finals. Not only will you avoid the lines at the post office, you'll have prepared in advance, which will impress your parents.

5. DO NOT try to stuff non-media items in a Media Mail box. Putting your clothes in the box will run the risk of having the box returned, rejected, to the post office in your college town, at your expense.

Be very careful to address the box properly, and to buy quality packing tape and tape the box solidly.

Moving out of the dorms, finishing finals, and moving home can be a much easier process if you plan ahead.