2020 School Essentials
5 Back to School Essentials 2020 for College Students
Unsplash @thoughtcatalog
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This year going back to school looks nothing like it has in the past. Because of this, I didn't want to do my usual first-day back to school supplies haul. Usually, that post centers around all of the college essentials you need to make your first day on campus a little easier. I don't think comfy shoes and a super cute bento box are back to school priorities for this semester.
This year, university grounds are literally in your living room, so cozy pants and insulated water bottles are entirely optional. So, I wanted to talk about some school supplies that hit closer to home. These are familiar, reliable, and have been with me for years.
I guess you could say these back to school essentials are what comfort food is to school supplies!
I have added links to these items if you are interested in trying any of them out. This post is not sponsored by any of these companies. All of the products are things that I have discovered through trial, error, and necessity. In saying that, some of the items may have affiliate links. I genuinely love each and every one of the products mentioned and reached out to them to form a partnership to offer these products or services to you.
In these "after days" of the pandemic, I think we can all agree that sometimes you just want to stick with what is familiar. That is why I am dubbing this list my "Chicken Noodle Soup School Supplies." They really just make you feel better!
Grammarly
I cannot understate the benefits that I have received from using Grammarly. I love writing, and I find that Grammarly just helps you add that extra bit of polish. After a long summer off, getting back into online school is going to be tough, especially for our writing.
I have been using Grammarly for years, and I admit before I downloaded it, I thought that the spelling and grammar checker I had in my writing programs was good enough. I felt that I could be sufficiently meticulous in catching all of my own writing errors, but I was mistaken. It is essential in college and university that you can put together concise, error-free writing assignments. Much of your grade relies on it. You can no longer count on the teacher to overlook mistakes. You have to be on point.
Grammarly can add massive benefits to the abilities, grammar, and sound for the casual writer. It can also add polish to even the most experienced authors.
One of the things that I discovered was that you can actually set goals for your writing piece. This will assess each sentence, as you write, and tell you how your reader will experience it. You can set the tone, technicality, and experience level of each piece of writing. This is great for me because I can switch between writing extremely technical scientific papers, to blog posts, just like this one, and it adapts!
Best of all Grammarly is FREE so it fits right into both college and university student budgets. The premium subscription is required to unlock some of the features but even the basic plan is incredibly beneficial. Every little bit of assistance helps. When it comes with no obligations, that is a win!
If you can only get one back to school essential for college or university, Grammarly is it.
BIC Velocity 1.6mm Pen
Online school is a lot like taking classes in person in that you still have to jot down a massive amount of notes. Every school supplies haul is going to have some basics in it, and pens are about as fundamental as it gets.
These pens are amazing to write with. They feel like an extension of your hand.
The ink is gel-based, so it glides super smoothly when you're writing. The pen has a little bit of a more full tip at the 1.6 millimetres size. This does lead to thicker strokes than some people would often prefer in everyday writing tasks. However, this is excellent for note-taking because it allows the gel to flow smoothly. This means you can write faster and effortlessly without the irritation of scratching and ripping your paper that some smaller headed pens do.
Student taking class notes while seated on her couch.
Image courtesy of Unsplash @ana_tavares
If you take class notes by hand, your writing is pretty messy anyway. Having such a long absence from college and university coursework is not going to help much help either. You have to go so fast to keep up with the professor. Most notes are in scribbles and shorthand, so rewriting them is often a necessity. This is something I do too, so I don't mind the thicker pen because I can just rewrite or type them up later.
I love the aesthetics of the Muji and the Gelly Roll pens. When I go shopping, I almost always have to pick up one. They are some of my favourite "final copy" pens. The problem is this, when you are frantically writing, trying to get down all of the information that the professor spews out, you need something that is built for speed and comfort.
The BIC velocity is that pen, I mean, it's right in the name. I have tried many, many different types of pens to take notes with during lectures. None of them have come close to the velocity. I keep several of them on me at all times. You know, just in case.
Sharpie Clear View Highlighters
Highlighters are an essential part of the note-taking process. I have discussed the importance of colour coding and highlighting many times before. So, I will not bore you with those details right now. For more information on that, check out this post where I deep dive into the nitty-gritty of how colour coding can enhance your memory. This study strategy can have a significant impact on the way you categorize the information you're trying to take it in.
Today we are going into my specs for essential highlighters, which is much easier to say than do. I'm a fan of several different highlighting brands, and I use each brand for different things. These highlighters are more than just school supplies. They are the backbone of many of my study sessions.
I like to highlight my notes before pulling them to make my final copy. Whether that is in my textbook or my lecture notes, I always read through them and highlight crucial information before pooling my notes into the final draft.
When I go through this first time, I use Sharpie Clear View neon highlighters. I love the Sharpie brand for this because they last so long, and they are super comfortable to hold. They look like they are very wide, but they still have the same thin vs thick line capabilities as you're smaller pen liners.
The difference is between these chubby highlighters and traditional pen-style ones are that they are incredibly comfortable to hold. I feel like the Sharpie's broader structure also makes them last longer since the ink is concentrated in a compact area.
Another unique selling feature on these is highlighters is that the ink pad sits atop a clear see-through panel. This is for more than just aesthetics.
While you're highlighting, you can see through the pen to what you're marking. You don't have to miss where the sentence ends since you can see it through this transparent piece. Rather than over highlighting and ending up with the next sentence or not being able to line up a chunk of text.
It seems like a small and insignificant thing, but once you get used to this, you wonder how you ever survived without it. Sharpies are also highly resistant to smudging, which I always appreciated.
These come in many colours, and I always keep my top 5, pink, yellow, orange, green and blue, in stock. I use them for my everyday highlighting but not for my final notes. If you can only buy one set of highlighters in your school supplies haul, these Sharpies are it.
I also purchase separate highlighters for my final copy of notes. I like to stylize my final notes and make them as aesthetically pleasing as possible. I find that it helps me to want to make them and more likely to review them too.
Sometimes when I make my notes pretty, I feel like I get to let my creativity out. It's less like studying and more like I am working on an art project. It just so happens that I get to retain some much-needed information while I am at it.
While doing this, I still want to remain faithful to my colour guide. To stay consistent, I need to have several different shades of each of my colours. I like to use Mildliners or Stabilo brands in different shades. These are purely my guilty pleasure.
A stack of textbooks.
Image courtesy of Unsplash @kaimantha
With these, I can find the shades or colours to complement any theme and still stick to you my colour coding key to lock those prompts into my memory.
So why am I picking two brands of vanity highlighters? Well, the downside to Mildliners specifically is that they are limited in colour selection. While I love them and they do have my favourite grey highlighter of all time, sometimes I need, or want, colours that they just don't offer. That's where Stabilo comes in. They have a fantastic selection with a variety of colours and shades, so if I cannot find the colour that I want in one, I shop the other.
School supplies, and stationery in general, is one of my comfort purchases. Sometimes when I feel stressed or overwhelmed, I splurge on stationery, and these always make me happy.
Flashcards
If you can only use one activity for your entire study schedule, my suggestion would be flashcards. These have a ton of applications as a study activity. Making them is a study activity unto itself. Once they have been created, you can test yourself over and over again. The benefits don't stop there. Check out this post of 10 different uses for flashcards. It is an extremely comprehensive article on the many applications of flashcards. Should you ever get bored during a study session, this will spice it up.
Online school is really tough. We will all have to be on top of our game to get the grades we want. Switching up study activities and adding new ones into your routine is going to be more critical than ever before.
I love this particular brand of flashcards because they come already pre-bound. They can still be taken apart, shuffled, and put back together quickly and easily. I love the little ring that they come on and the band that secures them. It allows me to be able to transport them cleanly without having to shove them in a ziplock. It's just all around just neater looking than the regular stack of index or recipe cards that you're used to picking up.
Because they're contained, it's easier to switch them out or store them and know that they are securely stowed away until you need them to study for finals.
Syllabus Study Planner
This is a creation of my own making, and I usually sell it in our store. But, because of everything we are going through right now, I am going to give it to you for FREE. You can download your copy here. Not only will it help you to track your progress through your courses, but it also tracks over 20 study activities so you can mix up your study blocks.
This year has been hard enough. I want to be able to share this with everyone because we all are in this together. For most of us, this year is going to be entirely online learning. This can be extremely difficult. If you have ever taken an online before, you know just how hard it is.
Use this handy Syllabus Planner to follow your study progress throughout the course. You can check how far you’ve come by tracking what study activities you have completed for each topic.
The amount of discipline that is required to excel at these courses is significant. You are largely just left to your own devices. There is no real schedule to keep and nothing to stop you from sliding out of routine.
Being able to learn at home and not have to go to class at first seems like a dream. Once you are actually in the reality of it, you realize that it is anything but.
Staying productive over this time is going to be challenging. All of your favourite distractions are going to be right there, tempting you. There are going to be days when it will be tough to knuckle down and get to work, but we have to stay disciplined.
Getting ahead of the course material is a great way to maintain this discipline. It reduces your chances of falling behind and will help you to avoid getting overwhelmed. The study syllabus planner can help with this.
This year is going to be a struggle. Going back to school without actually returning to campus is a challenge. If you have ever gone to school online or taken distance education classes, you already know how tough it is. Having your entire schedule remote learning is going to definitely be a lesson in patience and perseverance.
If you are returning to campus or you want to see past university and college essentials for your back to school supplies haul, you can check out these suggestions. If you need some help learning how to study, you can always check out this entire library of videos and articles to help you tweak those study habits.
You can also book a FREE consultation where I can help you to personally create study strategies and schedules that are tailored to your needs and learning style.
I would like to be transparent so that there are no misunderstandings, as an affiliate I may earn a small commission from any products linked in this post. This is not a sponsored post and I was not asked to recommend these products. These are products that I truly love and wanted to share with my audience.