Attending a new school without the guidance of your guardians is a lot of responsibility, and as you likely know, trial and error is key in finding your way in college. As students are already strapped for cash given high tuition and housing costs, it is less than desirable to spend a ton of money on something unnecessary or something that immediately breaks. Let’s see what the Life section regrets buying during their time at college.
James Fitzpatrick, Associate Life Editor (he/him/his)
I’ll use this prompt as an opportunity to confide in the student body that I wasn’t a Husky from day one. For four whole days, I attended Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, and for a multitude of reasons, those were some dark days. Therefore, I promptly left the school before my fee bill began accumulating charges and before classes started. In the process, however, I left behind a mattress pad, shower rack and purchased multiple books I have yet to sell. The products were fine; I just didn’t get to use them. There is a silver lining to the story in that my former roommate, who I discovered on TikTok, was thankful he had the room to himself for the semester.
I’ve been fairly frugal at UConn, namely since I wasn’t even attending the Storrs campus for the first two years. Nevertheless, my $1300 gaming laptop was meant to be a powerhouse in class and in my dorm room while gaming at Hofstra, but it was gearing up to be a colossal blunder for my mom’s bank account once I left. The need for it was diminished once I was back living at home where my gaming desktop resides, which could run Team Fortress 2 and Borderlands 2, my main games, with ease. However, having such a device that could easily be moved from room to room, and now between home and Storrs, is a benefit that will forever make me a proponent of gaming laptops despite their high cost.
Hayden Cromer, Campus Correspondent (he/him/his)
After spending three years here on the UConn campus, I’ve come to realize that spending hundreds and thousands of dollars here is incredibly easy. Not because you’re spending large sums at a time, but because of the small purchases that add up. One small purchase that I will forever regret was during the second semester of my freshman year here. UConn had gotten rid of my beloved Up and Atom Café in Gant in order to build NanoByte in the — at the time — brand-new Science 1 Research Center. I had followed the hype and decided to line up for something only they offered: boba tea.
I was skeptical of how good it really was, and rightfully so. I had spent $5.95 on my basic go-to, brown sugar milk tea. It was one of the worst decisions, and almost six dollars, I have ever spent in my life (not to be dramatic). The tea was okay, but it wasn’t that memorable, and it was kind of watery. But the boba? Good lord, it was like biting into frozen Orbeez that had been rolled around on the floor for a little bit. I can understand not putting your life and soul into making the tea, but you can’t mess up the boba; that’s like the entire experience. I’m not even sure if they sell it anymore because I haven’t been back since. My rating is 0/5; my feelings got hurt.
Paul Chum, Campus Correspondent (he/him/his)
Throughout the years, I have accumulated a collection of mistakes, that I once called purchases. These range from overpriced vinyl records to overpriced Persian rugs. My personal flavor of buyer’s remorse, if you haven’t noticed, tends to come from spending way too much. College is many things, and one of them is the opportunity to overspend. One of the easiest things to overspend on is clothes, especially if you prefer to thrift. Everything being cheap when you thrift only makes you more inclined to grab more off the rack. Before you know it, $7 becomes $40. Near the start of the semester, I got carried away and bought a slew of sweaters, not because I especially liked them, but because they were cheap individually. When the purchase was made, I was down $80 in total. The worst part about it: sweating in them these past few days, because I neglected to invest in lighter clothes.
Mikayla Murphy, Campus Correspondent (she/her/hers)
In the short month that I’ve been a student here, I haven’t made that many questionable purchases (yet). However, I trekked down to Price Chopper last week because I needed a pack of Celsius to get me through waking up at 4:15 a.m. the following morning. I also decided to buy sushi because it was a staple for me and my best friend back home, which was the first mistake.
They had my favorite roll, but I could only find chopsticks, and I thought it would be fine because I know how to use them — my second mistake — so I checked out and went back to my dorm. When I tell you it was the most disappointing sushi I’ve ever had, I mean it. The taste wasn’t even that bad (although it wasn’t great either), but the second I picked up a piece, it crumbled back into the container. And so did every other piece after that.
I never ended up finding a fork, so I sat in my dorm trying to eat deconstructed sushi with nothing but chopsticks (which is a low I hope I never return to). Maybe if I had spent an extra three minutes looking for another utensil before I left, then it would’ve been a better experience, but I also feel like maybe sushi shouldn’t dismantle that easily. Am I still going to get sushi from there? Yeah, most likely, but I’ll just make sure to buy a fork, too.
Bonnibel Lilith Rampertab, Campus Correspondent (she/her/hers)
I impulse-bought a cute feminine sweater from a pop-up clothing store on Fairfield Way near the Student Union during my first semester, but it was just barely my size, and it was made of an itchy material that probably wasn’t the best for my skin. I don’t know why I bought it besides wanting to feel more comfortable in my skin in a feminine way as a transgender woman.
The gender-affirming closet at the Rainbow Center is a free resource that I didn’t take advantage of my first two semesters; nonetheless, the sweater meant a lot to me for the short amount of time I wore it.
As I continue to grow and develop my gender identity, I still cringe at that brown sweater with pink and white spots which I colloquially called “the Nosgov sweater” after the digicore artist Nosgov, but at the time of buying it, the sweater was a symbol of my independence and autonomy to buy and wear whatever I want.