A Few Great Gifts for College Students

| December 5, 2015 | 0 Comments
Image Credit: BlairSnow

Image Credit: BlairSnow

College is tough, real tough. Here is a sobering statistic: College is a lot like marriage in that only about half make it the distance. According to Think Progress, only about 56% graduate. And that is only after six years of trying. Two-year programs are even worse. Less than 30% finish, and that is after three years of trying.

There are all kinds of reasons your kid might not march in the four-year time period you were hoping for. Make sure that one of those reasons is not that you failed to buy them the perfect gift this holiday season. Here are a few gifts ideas that just might keep them on track, and your hard-earned tuition money from going completely down the drain:

Student Planner

Kids are naturally unorganized creatures. That doesn’t improve when they enter college. It might actually get a little worse. There no periods or bells to keep them moving in the right direction, and help them get to the right place on time. There is no one to remind them to study for the big test, or to get their homework done, or any of the million things they are suddenly expected to deal with as a freshman in college.

While there is no magic bullet to make all those organizational challenges go away, there are tools you can provide that can be a big help. Consider a student planner. It can be modeled after the kind used by many schools, which often feature August to May calendars, and special designations for class schedules and assignments. You can find student planners online for inspiration and organization.

iPad Pro

The reviews are in. The iPad Pro is a really great device that seems taylor made for students. The iPad Air 2 is about the size of netbooks. from years past. Those netbooks suffered from screens that were too small, keyboards that were too small, storage that was too small, and an amount of power and battery life that was too small. With a small price to match, they were insufficient for just about everything a student needed to do.

The iPad Pro is priced like a decent laptop, and is more powerful that 80 – 90% of windows laptops. Its near-13” display rivals the most popular laptops in size, but with a lot more pixels for a stunning picture. At the same time, the 10 hr. battery life exceeds the standard device of this size and class. With it, you can get a full-size, first-party accessory keyboard and writing tool called the Apple Pencil. Whether you prefer a keyboard or handwritten notes, the iPad Pro has you covered.

Unlike the Microsoft Surface which is just a Windows Notebook hybrid, the iPad Pro runs a slightly modified version of iOS. The Surface Pro is the same thing you’ve always had, but in a slightly different form factor. The iPad Pro is an iOS device all grown up. If your child grew up on iOS and is ready to go to college, the iPad Pro is a college-reddy iOS device.

Hue Lights

College student love to accessorize and customize. That is because they have entered that time of life when they are discovering who they are as an individual. Decorating their student flat is only one of the many WANs their self-expression takes flight. The Hugh lights allow them to take that to a new level.

Make no mistake about it: There is nothing practical about a set of Hue lights. They are expensive and superfluous. But they are also fun, and allow for a lot of that new-found self-expression. The starter kit comes with three color-changing LED bulbs and a wifi base station, now, Apple HomeKit compatible.

The colors in a room can be controlled by the iPhone, and set by mood, time of day, or even by what happens to be on TV. There is something magical about telling Siri to turn the lights red, and having it actually happen.

Your child is going to have a hard enough time in school this year. Why not give them the gift of organization, powerful computing, and good, clean, whimsical fun?

 

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