So, I've been at university for 3 and a bit years now, and I've come across a few things that are essential when it comes to living the student life. Whether it be just general day to day necessities, methods for procrastination or for when it comes to finally doing some kind of work, here are the things that have come to be invaluable in the lives of today's students...
1.The Laptop:-
This is pretty much your life. It is your be all and end all. Here you keep you're essays, your stories, thoughts, videos, music, you watch DVDs on it when you're ill and lying in you're bed (hungover...),and most importantly of all...your laptop houses your best friend in all the world, the gateway to everything...the beloved Internet. Here you find everything you didn't find the library on Google Scholar or JStor. Who needs a TV? You're only going to watch it on 4OD, iPlayer or track down some programme that hasn't been broadcast in 20 years. You don't need a CD player or radio, you can just go online and listen to whatever you want, pretty much whenever you want. And...possibly the most important thing of all, it houses this next entry...
2. Facebook.
Oh how empty and desolate our lives must have been before the age of Facebook. Goodbye Myspace! You were too alternative for us lot who weren't in an unsigned indie band. Bye bye Bebo! You were just on the borderline of chavvy, too much for us, and we grew too old for you. And so we turned to our saviour - Facebook. Oh you're clean lines and status updates confused us at first, but how we warmed to thee!
Now every moment of our day is spent on Facebook. I've got Facebook open just now in another tab. I'm going to pause to check if anyone's spoken to me...They had, yay! If there is someone you knew at school, you didn't know them but want to snoop and see what their doing now, that's okay, add them on Facebook. If you thought that Kelly Rowland said 'Winner takes over' in that David Guetta song instead of 'When Loves Takes Over', which is the song's title, like I did...that's cool too, because there's probably a group dedicated to that very thing. Most important of all, it is the prime offender when it comes to methods of procrastination. ''So...you have a 3000 word essay due.'' "Yup." "When?" "Tomorrow." "You started?" "Nah. I'm playing Geo Challenge." Alternatively you spend all day staring at the screen waiting more that little red notification sign to pop up saying someone may have commented on a status that you like yesterday. Or that someone's just levelled up on Mafia Wars...one of the two.
It sounds like I'm being quite harsh on Facebook but I'm not. I love it. I literally check every 5 minutes, just out of habit. It has consumed my time. It's pretty good for keeping in touch with people, but it has become so much more than that.
3.Twitter.
My new favourite obsession. I'll admit for a while I wasn't fussed when I first joined it, but after setting myself up with Twitterfox (Echofon) and now Tweetdeck, I can't get enough of it. For us Media students, it's just one of many endless networking/blogging etc applications that we surround ourselves with. Though I first didn't see the point in it, I now enjoy Twitter. It eases the slight celebrity stalker in me, and I think it's nice that 'celebs' can kind of keep in touch with us regular folks, keeping all the fanboys updated, and keeping connected to their fanbase. I've also found it excellent for getting answers actually, particularly for any kind of technology/internet based questions, as a lot of the people on Twitter are generally that way inclined. For a student, yeah, it's just another thing that stops us from working, but I reckon it appeals to that part of us that like people to know our thoughts, what we're doing, etc. Twitter allows us to share with the world whatever is going on at almost any point in time. As does my next item.
4. Smartphones e.g iPhone, Palm Pre etc etc
Now I personally feel a little left out here. Everywhere I turn somebody's got some really swanky new phone that does pretty much everything in the world. I would blimmin' love an iPhone, almost only because of the Tea Round app, and yet here I am still chugging along with my little Samsung E250, though I do love that little thang. Anyway, thanks to these Samrtphones we can now be connected to our beloved Internet 24 hours a day, wherever we are (unless we've got no 3G...ugh). There's not much more to say really, bar that these phones allow us to be connected to the things that consume our lives, but while we're on the move. But actually, aside from us checking Facebook and all manner of things, we students, when we're in uni, we are flying round like blue-arsed flies. We've got emails to check, grades to get, classes to go to, books to request from the basement :(, dissertation tutors to track down, amongst other things, which these days, are pretty much all done online. Apart from the classes...although, the notes for them are online too...
5. Spotify.
Spofitfy has certainly become a large part of my life, my only problem being that I never have enough money to buy the songs, so they just have to stay on my laptop while I trudge round listening to whatever rubbish I've got on my iPod cos I've not put anything new on in months :(
More than that though, thanks to Spotify I've been able to discover a whole world of music that I've never heard before. These days I've got my Spotify playlists pretty much in the background on a loop all day. If there's a party, chances are there's a laptop on somewhere, with their playlist on the go. The adverts are a bit irritating, but after a while you're not really fussed anymore. So good on you Spotify, hurrah for meaning I don't have to clean my flat in silence.
6. iPod.
In a similar vein to the above, though I feel I perhaps may have got to it sooner. So Apple is carrying on with it's Tesco-style invasion of our lives, and possibly no more so than with the hallowed iPod. I've got one, you've probably got one, we've pretty much all got one. I at first refused to get one, but alas then my beloved Sony Walkman MP3 thing broke and was replaced my (now almost old-school) iPod Nano Video...1st Generation. Yeah, I know...how retro. Anyway, I challenge you, sir, to walk down the street of any town, or round the campus of any university and find someone who hasn't got a pair of headphones sticking in their ears. It won't matter even if you do, because I'll have my headphones in and I won't be able to hear you. iPod's are pretty much essential to student life. It provides the soundtrack to your day to day life, all tucked up in your pocket. Can you imagine having to sit in the library all day and just have to listen to the rest of the place, sniff and cough, and god forbid, talk to each other. Never fear! Headphones in, Dead Man's Party by Oingo Boingo on shuffle and you're away! Just make sure you charge it before you go out. Though actually, that won't matter because you'll probably have your laptop with you to charge it, or you'll iPhone with you, so it's not a problem :)
7. Digital Camera/Video Camera.
We all need a good digital camera. Whether it be from taking those traditional high angle Myspace photos (we all do it, let's stop the stigma) or doing what I do, which is pretty much walking around with it stuck to your face and documenting everything you ever encounter, we all need a nice camera, so we can share the photos on Facebook. Or Twitter. or Flickr. Wherever (you see how these things are all interlinked?). Also, we're a very media-savvy bunch these days, us students, so of course, we need a video camera, to make our short films, or our video blogs or whatever else we need to capture. We're a crafty bunch, and all you need to do is go on Youtube and see what some people can do with a camera, a laptop, and a half-decent editing software. Some of it is rubbish though. But some of it's awesome.
8. Relentless, Red Bull, Rockstar, Tesco's Kick 6 Packs...
This is my last one, because I feel I'm been concentrating on one thing for too long, and I need to check Facebook. I realise that the rest of this post has been a bit gadget/internet heavy, but this entry is as essential as everything that has gone before. Energy drinks. Yes they don't taste that nice, yes they turn you're tongue a hideous colour, and yes they probably rot your insides. But if you are sitting in front of your laptop, at 4 in the morning, and you have a 3000 word essay due in at 12, for which you have done absolutely nothing, you better believe that you'll have six cans of some high in caffeince carbonated drink sitting next to you.
I can imagine that I have probably left a few things out, but these were some of the major players. Please feel free to chastise and shout me down :) Also looking back at it, there are some excellent product placements in there, so a big 'You're Welcome', to Facebook, Apple, Twitter and whoever else I've mentioned.
Cheery Bye!
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