College Series Day 5: Clothes To Bring To College/ Maximizing Space

It's a little known fact that college dorm rooms are small, but the closet in a college dorm room is even smaller. Here's a couple of tips of what clothes to bring to college and a couple of ways to organize your closet to get maximum space:

• Bring your clothes to college seasonally. You are going to college in the fall, and the next FOR SURE break will be Thanksgiving. Bring your summer/fall wardrobe to college when you first move in. Then, during Thanksgiving, take your summer clothes home and bring your winter clothes to school. During Christmas break, bring your fall clothes home and take your spring clothes, and then during Spring Break, take your winter clothes home and bring you summer clothes (if your school gets hot around April/May.) You will never have to be rifling though your closet when you are late for class and be frustrated when your winter coat is in your way in the Spring. This rule goes for shoes too. You don't want to be tripping over your Ugg boots in the Spring/Summer. 
• ORGANIZE YOUR CLOTHES. Someday (or everyday) you will be running late for class or for an activity, and you will need to grab clothes fast. It's SO much easier to have your clothes right where you need them and organized, instead of having to look through everything. I know that I came home from an activity and had like 10 minutes to change for a party, and it was so easy to know where my clothes were so all I had to do is go in and quickly grab what I wanted. 
• Think about what you are going to wear the night before. I know this sounds silly, like your mom telling you to pick out your clothes the night before, but it actually helps. What I do, is when I get into bed and turn out the lights, I start thinking about the next day, what I have planned, and what I want to  wear. Giving your mind something specific to think about will help you fall asleep, and knowing what you are going to wear the next morning will save you time that you would have spent standing in your closet trying to think about what you want to wear. Now, of course, the weather is iffy, and your outfit might change in the morning when you realize it's raining or snowing or something, but at least it gives you a base point to start out with. 
• Bring about 14 different outfits total. That's two weeks worth of outfits, which is enough time for you to do your laundry every week. You aren't going to have much more room than that in your closet. 
• Get a full length mirror! My roommate and I didn't have one, and we always ended up having to go into our suitemates room and ask to use theirs, which got kind of awkward when we were going to a party that they weren't. Full length mirrors are super cheap at Target or Walmart, and they are a MUST!
• Get a laundry basket that stands on it's own. I have the typical white laundry baskets that are rectangular and that sit up on their own. I actually had two: one for clean laundry, and one for dirty laundry. It was super easy, because the clean laundry basket had a purple ribbon on it to indicate it was clean, and because they are those sturdy white laundry baskets, they fit easily inside of each other. So, I'd stack the dirty one on top of the clean one. Now, you definitely don't have to do that, but you should at least have a laundry basket that stands up. It's actually going to take up less space than one of the bags because the bags can't stay vertical as easily. They will end up taking up a lot of space in your closet, and they will give the illusion of a dirty closet.
• Get thin hangers. This is something I wish I'd done, because it really does save a lot of space. 

Your closet is going to take some organizing, so know that coming into college. If you keep it organized, it will be kind to you. If you don't, it's just going to cost you more time later on. To sum up: Keep your closet organized, you don't need your entire wardrobe, and save space however you can :) Hope this helps and good luck!