Your college dorm was probably your first residence away from home, but it’s time to move on. Moving from your college dorm to an apartment is exciting since it opens a whole new chapter to your life. But, at the same time, the moving process can be challenging and stressful, if you’re not sure how to organize it.
Luckily, we’re here to help. We’ve put together the ultimate guide to help you organize your moving process and make the transition smooth and easy. Just keep reading!
Declutter
Your college dorm room is small, and you’ve been sharing this space with a roommate for a long time. That means that it’s probably not the tidiest or most well-organized living space. In most cases, college students have many things stacked in their rooms that they don’t even know about.
Moving to an apartment allows you to declutter. Here’s what we have in mind:
- go through all the shelves, drawers, boxes, and small storage units you have
- create a “donate” and a “throwaway” pile
- rethink all your possessions and get rid of everything you don’t need or haven’t used in years
Decluttering is the first step in the process of successfully moving from your dorm to an apartment. It will make the packing and moving process much more convenient and easy.
Prepare Moving Boxes
Now that all that’s left in your college dorm room are the things you actually need, it’s time to start packing. Obtain the moving boxes you’ll be using to pack all your things. It’s best if the boxes are:
- sturdy cardboard boxes
- similar size, for stacking
You can easily find such boxes in liquor stores or grocery stores. Just be kind and ask them if they have any boxes to give you, since they throw them away in most cases.
Categorize Your Possessions
To make the moving process well-organized and smooth, you should categorize all your possessions before packing. That way, you’ll create a packing system that will prevent you from forgetting anything in the dorm.
Create categories, starting from the most important ones:
- documents and important paperwork
- technology, devices, and gadgets
- the furniture you brought into the room
- desk and office supplies
- books and study materials
- clothes and shoes
- cosmetics and toiletries
- etc.
Once you categorize all your possessions, you can start packing things in your boxes.
Develop a System
Developing a packing system means following a routine that will help you cover all the essential steps. The best system we suggest you follow is:
- pack all items together from each category on your list
- place them neatly in boxes
- label the box
- seal the box
- mark which side goes up, from all angles
Once you finish with one box, move it to the side and go on to the next one. Group the boxes from the same category to keep your boxes well-organized.
Once you finish packing all your belongings, do a final check of your dorm room. Ask your roommate to help you inspect whether you’ve truly packed everything.
Arrange a Moving Vehicle
To move all those boxes from your college dorm to your new apartment, you’re going to need a moving vehicle. The cheapest option would be to find a friend that has a van or a small truck and organize your friends to help you load it and unload it.
You could also do it in a car, making several trips from the dorm to the apartment, and back.
But, if you don’t know anyone with a vehicle you could use, you can hire a moving company to transport all your things to your new apartment. Their professional workers will take care of the whole process and safely deliver your things to your new apartment.
Unpack Systematically
Once all those boxes arrive at your new apartment, you’ll need to organize your new living space and find room for all the things you brought in. We suggest you unpack gradually, solving one category at a time.
If you open up all your boxes and start improvising, your apartment will turn into a huge mess before you know it.
So, it would be best to:
- do a deep cleaning of the entire apartment before you unpack
- open and unpack one box at a time
- remove the empty boxes as soon as you finish up with them
The process might take a couple of days to finish, but take your time to keep everything nice, clean, and tidy.
Keep Up With College Obligations
During this process of moving from your dorm room to an apartment, you can’t forget or disregard all your academic obligations. You still need to continue studying, doing your homework, and paying attention to the due dates of other assignments.
This might be hard, especially since you’ll need at least a couple of days to get settled in your new apartment. The smartest thing to do is to work extra hard a couple of days before moving and try finishing it all in advance. You can get help from a friend or find it online with top-rated study documents that provides a different perspective to your knowledge. Furthermore, you can trust that the materials have been shared by students who took the same classes, ensuring the information’s accuracy and relevance.
Plan ahead and don’t allow your moving process to hinder your academic success.
Final Thoughts
Moving from a college dorm room to a new apartment is definitely something you shouldn’t do on your own. Ask for help from a friend, your family, or a moving company, to speed things up and finish successfully.
The tips we’ve listed above will help you organize your moving process and start enjoying a new chapter of your life, in your apartment.
We hope you found this blog post How to Move from a College Dorm to an Apartment useful. Be sure to check out our post How to Decorate a Studio Apartment Home to Maximize Space for more great tips!
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