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Back to College Shopping List

Sep 03, 2006 in , , ,

In response to the horribly inaccurate Back to School Cheat Sheet on CrunchGear, Derek Punsalan wrote an interesting rebuttal with a proper shopping list of his own. CrunchGear is coming under attack since the list Mr. John Biggs created was completely absurd for any college student, listing things like 55-inch $3,200 plasma TV’s, a $200 backpack, and a $400 satellite radio receiver. Oh and Mr. Biggs also thought that public college tuition was around $3,000… um, yeah; 10x that buddy.

My list would include more realistic things like a MacBook, TI-83/89 graphing calculator, a cheaper iPod Nano, a good deck of cards for poker, a Jansport or equivalently priced backpack, a cheap Wi-Fi router (assuming your school allows WAPs) and a small TV.

Update: I have written A Realistic Back to School Guide for College Students aimed at incoming college freshmen.

Update 2: I have written Back to College Shopping Guide, Off-Campus Edition aimed at upperclassmen.

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11 Comments

  1. I just finished buying all my textbooks and that set me back half a grand =\

    Other than that I pretty much have everything I need for back to university, ie) graphing calculator, laptop, ipod

  2. I have a 20-inch Apple cinema display and already feel incredibly fortunate as a student. A 55-inch plasma TV?! Wow, I’m definitely looking forward to working life then, imagine what we’d be able to afford :D

  3. Dude… TI 89 - love it. Jeeps I remember doing decision maths with the matrix calculator on that. And starting to vaguely understand why a double integral was important.

    Three of us in my Maths class, who also did computing, once spent an entire weeks breaks in between double maths making stupid ass programs for that machine. Makes me feel all warm inside just thinking about it.

  4. Public school tuition is $3,000 for some of us :)

  5. if you’re in-state probably?

  6. my TI-89 got me through high school. I don’t think I could work an equation at this point, but I can code up a mean drug wars or random number generator.

    have you seen those things lately? they make printers, keyboards, even sonar devices. at some point you have to consider if the end device isn’t the weak point.

    “let’s take notes on my greyscale 10-line dot matrix display. whee.”

    great post!

  7. I gotta admit. This is pretty ridiculous. The person who wrote this doesn’t even sound like he’s been to college in the past ten years. This “article” sounds like a regular gadget list with the words college and student slapped onto it.

  1. [...] It’s been 24-hours since the violent backlast against CrunchGear’s laughable attempt at a back to school check list. Derek Punsalan wrote a great entry titled “College Frosh: Don’t break the bank,” and Paul Stamatiou got us back to reality with his “Back to College shopping list.” Paul actually left a comment after reading my crunchgear tirade. [...]

  2. [...] that college students can afford very expensive gear. Containing items such as a 55-inch plasma TV, CrunchGear’s Back to School Cheat Sheet published last year was met with mess of comments stating the list was absurd. Not to be outdone, [...]

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