Tech You Won't Need on Campus

You've already shelled out a king's ransom in tuition and there's no shortage of stuff you're going to need to buy to get you through the next four years. So why pay out for things when you don't have to? College campuses are a different sort of beast when it comes to technology, so you can get away with going back to school with less.

Here's a list of what you might consider leaving behind:

Your Printer: They're big and bulky in cramped dorm rooms and they're plentiful on campus. With a flash drive, you can run over to the library, student union building, or dozens of other places on campus to print up a hard copy. Some dorms have shared printers, too. Worst case: You can always buy your roommate a pack of paper or ink, and share.

AOL or Other Paid ISP: Other than love, your high-speed connection is probably the only free thing you're likely to get for the next four years, so you might as well depend on it. You'll adopt your .edu name and give up the others, possibly saving some money if you do. If you have free web email accounts—Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo! Mail—you'll still be able to access them through the school's network.

Netflix: Don't say you read it here, but if one person in the dorm has a Netflix account, well, that's all you really need. Try communal movie sharing.

TV: Many dorms now come equipped with cable connections for TV hookup, but TVs take up valuable space. Better to invest in a Media PC that lets you watch TV and compute on the same machine. HP makes some nice ones. Or, if you don't mind a 3-inch plus screen, just download your favorite shows from the Internet and watch on your iPod or on phones like the iPhone.

Landline: With more students shunning dorms' traditional landlines in favor of wireless, some schools have begun ripping out their wireline networks. Others are installing cutting-edge Internet-based (VoIP) systems. Once you make sure that you'll have a good signal on campus and that your school doesn't require a landline (a few years ago many of them did), you can safely cut the cord. Some of the new cell phones like the iPhone have both cellular and wireless connections. T-Mobile has begun offering a dual-mode service that lets you use Wi-Fi instead of your provider when it's available. Could be the campus winner!

Back Up Device: I'm not suggesting you don't backup—on the contrary. But instead of paying for your own back-up drive, your school is going to give you mucho megabytes of storage on their servers, so back up all your important files to your directory on their server instead.

Digital Camera: Many students say that their 2-megapixel camera phone suits them just fine. Research says that more girls than boys bring digital cameras to campus; boys will just use their cell phones.

Digital Video Cameras: Many schools have a digital loaner pool of video cameras and microphones. Check out your school's equipment loaners before you buy.

Pens, Pencils and Books: Don't start singing "no more pencils, no more books," just yet; but schools are getting closer to that as more campuses start using digital blackboard technologies to share notes. Many campuses are experimenting with electronic books on iPods or book readers. The NYU College of Dentistry, for example, just got rid of them.

Keychains: Unlikely that you're going to have too many keys dangling from a chain these days. Most campuses have switched to digital swipe cards that will get you into your room, charge your meals to your account, and even pay your tuition. With all that power on one card, take it slow on the swipe.

Wi-Fi Sniffer: Not that you were going to rush out and get one, but so much of today's campus is wireless that it would be faster walking to a connection than using a sniffer to detect one.

CDs: The liner notes were always too small to read, anyhow. Save the space by moving all your music to an MP3 player for once and for all. Oh yeah, buy a MP3 docking station and you can leave the stereo at home, too.