Back to College Shopping List

September 3, 2006 · 11 comments

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.

{ 4 trackbacks }

College frosh: Don’t break the bank - 5ThirtyOne - Refreshing isn’t it?
September 3, 2006 at 2:10 am
EliHorne.com » School for the rest of us
September 3, 2006 at 8:02 pm
College v2 - helping you survive college » Blog Archive » What happens when rich old people give college advice.
September 3, 2006 at 10:29 pm
A Realistic Back to School Guide for College Students - PaulStamatiou.com
September 2, 2008 at 2:10 am

{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Ash Haque September 3, 2006 at 3:42 am

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

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2 weisheng September 3, 2006 at 6:55 am

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

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3 M September 3, 2006 at 3:34 pm

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.

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4 kenny September 3, 2006 at 6:47 pm

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

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5 Paul Stamatiou September 3, 2006 at 7:03 pm

if you’re in-state probably?

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6 Eli Horne September 3, 2006 at 9:33 pm

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!

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7 Michael September 4, 2006 at 12:56 am

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.

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