Things They Need To Know Before They Go - 4

·               How to cook basic meals - As with basic cleaning skills mentioned below, any student can learn how to cook basic meals, but not every student will have the tools they need to cook. At the very minimum, students should consider what kind of cooking tools and appliances will be available in their particular residence halls. Will a microwave, refrigerator, coffee pot, kettle, or a complete kitchen be available?  Once they have this knowledge they will know what utensils, pots or pans to bring with them. If they will only have access to a microwave, bringing a full set of steel saucepans, will be useless.

If he will have access to a full kitchen, your chils can get started on the “real world” business of preparing basic meals. Even if he’s never cooked before, boiling eggs, cooking pasta, rice, or boxed meals is a good way to start. A two to three quart saucepan and a steel spoon are all that will be needed. Even if the cooking instructions are not on the package, they can be found online in about 5 seconds. Gotta love smart phones!

·               How to clean - Once again, students should learn about what will be cleaned for them and how often, and what they will have to clean for themselves. If your child is living in a traditional residence hall, the common areas such as hallways, lounges, and bathrooms are usually cleaned daily while each student is responsible for cleaning his own bedroom. To clean a typical residence hall room, students really only need a bottle of all-surface spray cleaner and cleaning cloths or wipes, window and mirror cleaner, a whisk broom and pan, or small or handheld vacuum if the room is carpeted. 

Things They Need To Know Before They Go

Things they need to know before they go

How to do laundry – Why does every book about preparing for college advise students to learn how to do laundry?  Because, every September in residence hall laundry rooms across the nation washers and dryers meet untimely deaths due to user error. Considering that college students have never had to invest thousands of dollars in appliances like their parents and university administrators do, it makes sense that they don’t think about how common mistakes can have a big impact. Here is a list of common laundry room problems and their solutions.

Problem: Too much detergent or fabric softener can lead to machines overflowing with bubbles and slimy fabric softener. This usually floods the laundry room and requires repair of the machine.

Solution: Always read and follow the product and machine labels. More soap doesn’t get laundry any cleaner; it just makes more suds that will need to be rinsed out of fabric over and over again.

Problem: Overstuffed machines and unbalanced loads. A machine that is too full or unbalanced will result in clothes not being clean at all and an unbalanced machine will stop running midway through the wash.

Solution: follow the posted machine instructions and fill the machine loosely. It’s better to use two machines than to cram one too full and end up with clothes that were never actually cleaned because the machine was too full to agitate or tumble the clothes.

Problem: Colors bleeding.

Solution: Almost everyone has had a red sock make its way into a load of whites or noticed that when colors aren’t separated from whites, the whites eventually become dingy. This is another situation where sorting colors and running two loads instead of putting everything in one machine make a big difference.