Last Minute Shopping for Uni

With only two weeks until we all start or return to Leicester, it’s the perfect time to suddenly stress our parents out with last minute shopping lists of forgotten uni necessities. So, I thought I’d share my own shopping list to help you with ideas (make sure to forward this post to your parents).

Stationary

A pretty obvious one, but often forgotten; stationary is a necessity for lecture notes, extracurricular planning, tutorial doodling and signing up for every single society at freshers fair. Despite the swing towards using laptops, tablets and phones to record lectures and keep track of your day-to-day life, having a set of stationary will never be a regretted purchase.

Bedding

Whether you’re moving into first year accommodation or your own place with friends, bedding is an absolute necessity. I don’t mean for the obvious reasons of warmth and comfort, but for adding personal style, colour and a homey feel to your room. This is also a good time to remind you to bring laundry detergent or change for the machines and to please, please wash your sheets AT LEAST once a term – or just bring a spare set if you’re really committing to the ‘lazy student’ stereotype.

Warm Clothes

As we start uni at the end of summer, people can often forget that you won’t have the opportunity to go home and pick up more clothes until Christmas, when the temperature would’ve dropped dramatically. Also if you’re from the south like me and see Leicester as part of the frozen north, rather than the midlands, or you’re a study abroad student used to the daily warmth of Australia or Florida, then make sure you pack a few coats to avoid frostbite.

Food

Regardless of whether you’re in the University of Leicester’s catered halls, or attempting to cook all your own meals at uni, make sure you stock up on the snacks and meals that don’t take too long to cook. Making it to catered breakfast is an absolute myth (I think I made it a maximum of 8 times in first year) and nobody wants to put in effort to make dinner after a long day in lectures and an extra-long football training session. On the other hand, you could also just stock up on Domino’s vouchers and JustEat giftcards.

This is obviously a very short and sweet list of things to remember to pick up and stuff into the car before you make your journey to Leicester in a couple of weeks. However, if you need to a serious packing list, check out this link, which is the list I use every year to make sure I’ve got everything I need.

Thanks for reading,

Becky