Written by: Molly Shoffner
Photos by: Ronan Lynch
When almost all class content is uploaded on Canvas and online textbooks are much easier to haul to and from campus than their physical counterparts, a laptop seems like the only item any Western student could need. However, the life of a college student is a busy one, full of classes, assignments, internships, and jobs, all while balancing relationships, self-care, and any other responsibilities. In keeping up with all that, there is an assortment of essentials that each student carefully curates for their daily life, and these essentials vary by student, degree, job, living situation, hobbies, interests, and needs, giving small, unseen peeks into their lives.
Third-year biology major Piper (she/her) says the bag she uses, a black, Keen brand backpack with a messenger-bag-style flap, is the same bag her mom used in college. “It’s proving to be pretty sturdy. I used it all through high school and it never gave me any issues so … it works and that’s why I have it!”
When she’s not studying between classes, working in her childcare position on campus, or at her home off-campus, she says she works as a server at a local Bellingham restaurant, and she spends a lot of her time skiing in the winter months.
Though Piper says she could get by with just her laptop, which she takes most of her notes on, a notebook, and pens, she also carries a calculator for her math and biology classes, her bio lab manual, an additional notebooks for notes, and a small journal with hummingbirds and butterflies on the cover that she’s using for an outdoor class she’s in this quarter. At the time, she was carrying around some rope for her outdoor class, but that’s not a typical thing for her. She also carries her water bottle, and as she shows it to me she says, “stay hydrated.”
What she carries with her not only reflects her daily life as a student, but also herself. “I have a ton of notebooks and,” she laughs, “I’m really feeling school at the moment.” She says her water bottle, which she has covered in stickers, is particularly illustrative of who she is. “I’m really attached to my water bottle — my thermos and my water bottle. My dad got this [water bottle] for me when I moved to college, and I was like, ‘Okay, here we go, all my stickers.’”
The math notebook that she carries around feels like the least accurate representation of where she is in life right now. She says “I’m in my last year of math, so … I’m really ready to get done with that.”
As a third-year psychology major and TA, Malcolm (he/they), spends a lot of time on-campus, but commutes from their home off campus, and has another job at the YMCA. Their chosen bag, a muted green backpack with black accents, red zipper-pulls, and many pockets, is a minimalist, practical tool for their school day that they say they started using after their parents gave it to them for Christmas.
In his bag, he carries two spiral notebooks, a pencil case for his pens, two folders, his laptop, where he says he does most of his work, his keys, and his wallet. They also have their lunch, which is packed up neatly in a small container with a reuseable, dual-purpose fork and spoon. On this day, he had a sweater with him from the day before, which he says he forgot to take out before heading to campus.
“At least for school, I could probably survive with just my laptop for the most part, and lunch. The notebooks are more of a personal preference for taking notes and brainstorming things,” he says.
They don’t consider their bag or its contents to be indicative of who they are or where they are in their life. “I guess it reflects on what I’m going to be doing today, or until I get a different bag when I get home for a different thing. I’d say it’s more temporary than showing who I am.”
His lunch is what he finds to be most representative of his day, saying, “It shows that I’m going to be here for a while. Most of the other stuff is pretty random. I mean, the papers kind of show what I’m involved in.”
The extra sweater they brought with them that day, which they say was an accident, is inaccurate to what their day on campus involves. Otherwise, he says, “I don’t bring that much because I’m just going to be doing homework or eating in any free moment.”
For applied math major Helen (she/her), her chosen bag has been with her through middle and high school, and is still proving to be reliable as she starts her third year of college. “I’ve had this bag since I was in 4th or 5th grade. I like it, my grandmother got it for me when I was a kid.”
The bag, a large backpack covered in an ornate butterfly pattern, is ideal for when Helen, who lives off-campus, plans to spend most of her day on campus. “I have two backpacks, but today I brought this one because my other one is smaller, and this bag is big.”
Packed in her bag, she brings her computer, notebooks, and pencil pouch for classes, as well as headphones in case she wants to listen to music while studying. She always has tissues, a small first aid kit, hand sanitizer, and her water bottle on hand. In preparation for a day spent on campus, she brings a lunch bag. “I bring lots of food because I stay here pretty much all day, so I need food.”
Her essentials are food, her school supplies, and lip balm, which she says she carries three of because she tends to lose them often and has found it best to have backups because she can’t go through her day without it.
As a full-time student, most of her bag’s contents are a representation of where she is in her life right now, and she considers the first aid kit and hand sanitizer to reflect a sense of preparedness in her.
Other items hold more sentimental value, such as a wooden bookmark with a piece of metal at the top engraved with butterflies that she carries with her. “I have this bookmark that was given to me when I was ten by one of my closest friends at the time, and I just like to carry it around. It’s like a little memento.”
She also carries around a small Ziploc bag of bird seed, which reminds her of her pet birds. “This is what they eat, so I bring a little baggy of their food.”
She says she will sometimes throw some of the seed out to the birds on campus in the winter, but her main purpose for bringing it with her is to have a token of remembrance for her birds at home. “For the birds outside I try to bring peanuts and stuff. I bought a tub of peanuts, and when I remember I’ll bring a handful and toss them to the crows … I feel bad [for the birds] in the winter when it snows. I know people feed them because I see seeds around Eden’s [Hall], but when it snows, … I worry about them.”
After cleaning out her bag over the summer, she now finds everything in her bag to be representational of who she is and where she is in life. “I had a bunch of rocks from when I was a kid. I would collect rocks, and this summer I cleaned it out because I [was like] ‘my bag is getting too heavy.’”
Shaw (he/him), a kinesiology major and senior who works at the Wade King Student Recreation Center, has used his bag — a black, spacious, Nike brand backpack — since he was given it in his junior year of high school. “A long time ago, my mom rented out her house for a little bit, and one of the tenants, … I think he was the president of some soccer league, … I don’t know how or when, but he got this backpack and he gave it to us, and I’ve just used it since.”
He carries his computer, which is where he takes notes, accesses lecture slides, and keeps his calendar, a binder that acts as the lab manual for one of his classes, good ol’ pencils and pens, and sometimes, he says, a pack of gum with him. He wears glasses, so the case is always in an accessible spot in his bag as well. “It’s pretty straightforward, I feel like.”
Although he takes most of his notes on his computer, Shaw has a journal and an old sketchpad that he carries with him, which he says is in case he ever wants to jot something down. In addition to his current journal, he carries one of his former journals with him to read.
As for his essentials, Shaw says, “I’m pretty much always carrying my water bottle around. I like to carry my journal around, and I carry my phone around, but that’s more essential because if something ever happens. It’s not essential to me because I want my phone around all the time.”
He considers some aspects of his bag’s contents to be a reflection of who he is as a person, while other aspects are only representative of his current position as a student. “The journal and the old journal, I feel, are very personal to me, and not everyone’s going to carry that stuff around but … I feel like everything I carry reflects where I am in one way or the other, whether it’s academically or socially…”
While the four students highlighted here give only a glimpse into the diverse range of our student community, they are a testament to how unique each Western student is and what they carry with them, although distinctive to each individual, show that when it comes down to the small things, our essentials for getting through the day are quite similar.