What Does a Student Need?

It's an age-old question, albeit a young age: What does a student need nowadays? A 52-inch widescreen plasma TV with Sky HD, 12.1 Surround sound, the latest £4,000 laptop and, of course, a pillow. But what else?

The popular choice is cooking equipment, and everyone has their favourites. I've gone for a very basic sandwich toaster for two simple reasons:

1) I got one for my birthday, and

2) It doesn't require a degree in food technology to use! Perfect!

Besides from that I have also got the usual suspects: Cutlery, pots, pans, a whisk (now there's a story), bottle opener (essential, apparently) and a can opener (otherwise how would I open the beans?)

Onto the bathroom! Shaver (because women love a close shave) and a towel. Seriously, what else do you need?

Finally, the most important room for any student, the bedroom. Technology-wise I am equipped with a desktop, laptop, camcorder and MP3 player. Most people would see this as overkill but because I am studying a relatively technology-rich course I have opted to take both a laptop for lecture notes and on the move, and a desktop for the serious coursework.

An obvious omission from this list is a TV, and this is because my computer can now double-up as a TV, to save space. This is an interesting decision actually. Because of the small nature of a student room it would be ridiculous to have a computer and a TV, so the decision is instead to either get a TV tuner card for your computer or forgo the TV altogether and use BBC iPlayer and the TV in the common room or your friend's room to watch the occasional programme. The advantage of the latter is cost: you don't need to pay for a TV licence. For now I am decided on the first option, but I will hold off and see if I get a good enough TV signal in my room before I start to pay the TV licence fee.

Whether I need all of the items above are debateable but I'd guess that you have most, if not all, of the thing listed.

The countdown is down to 4 days, and I still have a lot to do.

Charles