Holiday Gifts for the Dorm Dweller
Heading off to college for the first — or last — time? Then check out our top five must-have college essentials. Running the gambit from practical to plain fun, these gifts will make a perfect addition to any wishlist.
Practical Gifts
Gift Idea: Amazon Kindle
Textbooks, novels, newspapers — with so much to read, study, and carry, life as a college student is anything but easy on your back or the environment. But what if you could conserve all that ink and paper into a lightweight, easy-to-hold device that stores 200 book titles, newspapers, and even blogs? You’d be thinking of the Amazon Kindle. Fresh off the assembly line, it’s the latest in e-book readers and boasts an on-the-go wireless connection for downloading digital data. From catching up on required readings to finding out the latest with RSS feeds, keeping up-to-date with your reading has never been so easy.
Price: $399
Website: http://www.amazon.com
Gift Idea: Webster’s New World Dictionary on USB Drive
Feeling perspicacious? Need to measure an apogee? Want to expound upon the finer points of anthropomorphism? If any of these phrases has you confused then it’s time to boot up your word knowledge. In college you’ll need the right language skills whether you’re writing papers, taking exams, or just trying to figure out what your professor’s saying during lecture. But before you start lugging around a three-pound dictionary wherever you go, check out Webster’s New World Dictionary on USB Drive. You’ll find polysyllabic words instantly deciphered with the click of a mouse thanks to this device that holds all the intricacies of the English language in an easy-to-carry — and transfer — electronic form.
Price: $42.99 - 64.99
Website: http://www.centon.com/usb/websters
For Fun Gifts
Gift Idea: iKaraoke
Searching for a way to bring life to your next dormroom party? Look no further than the iKaraoke by Griffen Technology. It’s an iPod add-on that takes your favorite tunes and turns them into instant karaoke classics by removing vocal tracks before it sends the signal to your stereo. With the mere flick of a switch you can be rockin’ out to your pipes singing the latest top hits. And if you really want to feel like you’re hitting the stage, turn on the reverb for some authentic echoing. It’s the perfect gift whether you’re an aspiring American Idol or simply want the craziness of a karaoke bar without the high prices.
Price: $49.95
Website: http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/ikaraoke
Gift Idea: Smarty Pants for the Wii
No dorm is complete without a Wii videogame console and the party games to go with it. That’s why you’ll want to add Electronic Arts’ latest offering, Smarty Pants, to your holiday videogame wishlist. Combining trivia with the Wii’s interactive motion sensors, the game asks you to put on your thinking cap and your dancing shoes. You’ll go from answering questions about the periodic table of elements to using the Wii-mote to “crank” the in-game spinner, and with up to four people playing at the time you’ll work up some laughs as you hone your competitive edge.
Price: $49.99
Website: http://www.ea.com/smartypants/
Practical and Fun!
Gift Idea: Speaker Frames
If there’s one uniting factor amongst college dorms across the country, it’s that they’re all small. Painfully, excruciatingly, small. So in the spirit of college students who have to save space by doubling up on item uses — look mom, it’s a combination crate/table/footstool! — American Science & Surplus store is now marketing the Speaker Frame. It’s your average everyday 5″ x 7″ wooden picture frame with an added feature: a speaker hidden in the back. Snag a set and get ready to conserve desk space while adding a touch of pizzazz to old high school photos.
Price: $29.50 each
Website: http://www.sciplus.com/singleItem.cfm/terms/13980
- Genevieve M. Blaber
Add comment December 12th, 2007
Get your favorite family portrait enlarged and in the form of a painting that will make it seem like it should hang in a museum from MyLife-MyArt. The painting will be the perfect addition to your dorm room wall and will give you that extra homey feeling you’ve been lacking since you moved in last September. There are lots of choices for sizes and frames. To give it an extra authentic and different look, choose the gallery option.
Most every female college student has heard of BedHead TIGI products for their hair before. Now, the maker of the straightening, curling, and anti-frizz balms and sprays has come out with a line of pro styling appliances in their “Light Me Up!™” collection. We tried the 1″ curling iron and found that it creates loose curls, for that natural and wavy look. Tourmaline, Nano-Ceramic, and Ionic technologies have been combined for healthy-looking, soft, and shiny hair. And it’s hot pink - the perfect accessory for the college girl! So get your tresses professionally styled on your own before your big presentation. You’ll look and feel like a million bucks! Also available by BedHead are colorful hair dryers, straighteners, and other styling irons.
For your upcoming presentation that requires proof that you went to the museum, why not take a picture? But it’s hard to do that when you’re by yourself or everyone you’re with wants to get in. Enter XShot. With a digital camera, you can attach XShot to the built-in thumbscrew, set the camera’s self-timer, extend your arm, and shoot! XShot gets over three feet away and can fit up to five people in your photo with no problem. So use it for your next presentation or to get some fun pics up on your college Facebook profile.
Last semester you were totally annoyed with your roommate’s sleeping habits. She always went to sleep early and shut off the light, leaving you to squint at your work in the dim light of the flashlight you had to position just in the right place. Don’t get caught up in the same mess next semester and get a Flex Neck Reading Light, by LightWedge, LLC. It keeps only your immediate work area well lit without the hassle because you can attach it where it’s needed - to a book, to your computer, etc. This reading light also comes in eight different colors. So leave the olden days of candlelight behind you and 
Keep your iPod stylin’ with an iPod hoodie - the perfect kind of college gear. The hoodie is a bright orange mesh case that has, you guessed it, a hood. The front of the hoodie has a pocket to store headphones. For a fun and stylish look, be sure to dress up your iPod - it’ll keep it warm during those snowstorms of the beginning of the semester while you trek to class in your own hoodie and UGGs.
In this small, handheld book, you can flip through quotes from real students and parents. Get advice, reactions, and tips on how to survive that test all students dread: 
With an extensive word list, the 2007-2008 edition of this SAT help book certainly aims to “up your score.” It includes more than 600 words and if you’re not that in to reading a book all the time, you can download the words onto your iPod and study them on the go! The same word list appears throughout the book and uses silly sentences as ways to remember vocab that’s most commonly found on the SAT.
This SAT prep book was written by two tutoring center owners, who happen to be sisters. In it, there are instructions on acing the SAT: it is broken down by section, followed by sample practice problems. The authors pose questions to the reader to get them thinking about their own skills (ie. “What happens when…” and “What does this mean?”). It’s almost like the authors are having a conversation with their audience.