Hello Hawkeyes, and welcome to the 2021 fall semester. The fun of moving in is something we all look forward to, but no one looks forward to the hassle of actually lugging around a room’s worth of items. So how can you make this process easier? Here are some hacks I found!

1. Organize clothes by season into tubs
   Why bring your entire wardrobe to college if you know you are going home for winter break? The answer is simple… don’t. Go to the store and buy two identical tubs. If it is summer, put all of your fall and your favorite winter items in one tub, and in the other put the rest of your winter clothes. If you are packing in the winter, pack all of your spring clothes and your favorite summer clothes in one tub, and the rest of your summer clothes in the other.Now that you have your out-of-season clothes packed in tubs, put the tub for the upcoming season and favorite items into your car. Pack this tub first! It should be big and bulky, so it is easier to fit small items around the tub than the tub around the smaller items. This tub is going to your dorm room with you, and the other will stay in your closet at home. This will ensure you have some clothes to start you off when the weather changes, and you won’t have to take a special trip home just to switch out clothes. Put this tub somewhere out of sight or reach, because you won’t need it. I slipped mine under my bed and in the corner!

   Now here is the best part. Pack the clothes that are in season into the hamper you will use in college. Stuff this full! Anything that is leftover, put in duffel bags or day bags you can envision yourself using in college. When you get to college you can put these items in dresser drawers or hang them up, but when the season changes, grab that tub from the corner of the room and switch out the items between the tub and your closet. Now you have a new wardrobe that is in season, and all of your out-of-season clothes out of the way without taking a separate trip home! Now when you go home for break, take this tub of out-of-season clothes and switch it out with the tub of now-in-season clothes that are at home, and add to your closet!

2. Plastic wrap is your friendWhen packing for college, you don’t have a lot of space in the car typically. To make it seem roomier, I found it easy to set up my small room pieces such as my three-tier storage cart and my shoe rack, and stuff them with all of the items that can fit in them. That means things inside things inside things. Things that can be squished are, and every nook and cranny is filled with something.

   Now that this sounds like a chaotic mess that will fall all over the place, you have to make it easy to move. Plastic wrap (used for packaging mail is the best but plastic wrap for food works too) will be used to secure your items in the place they are in. Wrap individual shelf units as a tier and every item stays in place. This means you can just pick it up and pack it in the car as easily as if it were empty.

   A bonus for the three-tier cart is that they come with wheels so they can still roll all around campus with your stuff packed full inside and you don’t have to worry about it falling out or getting a moving cart for this item. An additional bonus if your car is anything like mine is, the three-tier cart, although tall, does not have to be set on its side. Instead, mine fit in front of the stationary back seat and our movable passenger seat and rested on our floorboard. The movable passenger seat when pushed back allowed the whole structure to be secured in the car.

3. Reusable bags first, then tiny boxesWhen moving in and out, you have to use every bit of car space possible, but you also have to stay organized. How? Use reusable bags to throw your items inside to allow the bag to form fit into the nooks and crannies of the car. Save these bags on a high shelf or in the corner of your room for when you move out, then you won’t have to track down packing materials. When you run out of reusable bags moving in, use small boxes! These also fit in those small spaces while keeping your things organized. You can also find smaller boxes more readily than those large, awkward, and bulky boxes!

I hope you take these hacks into consideration as you are moving, they certainly helped me out this year as opposed to last year when I did not think these things through!

This blog post will be followed by a tour of my entire new dorm room in the near future.