How many hoodies is too many?

How many hoodies is too many? I’ve been asking myself this question for the past few weeks, and I still haven’t found an answer. I currently have seven sitting in my room, and somehow still debating whether I should bring another one. Unfortunately, I love one of the heaviest types of clothing to pack.

Packing for college sounded easy at first. Like my sister did when she went to college, I thought I would just go through my room, pick out what I wanted, put everything into bags, and be done — quick and simple. Instead, I’ve spent way too much time trying to figure out how much of everything I actually need.

How many pairs of pants? How many shorts? How many shirts? What about shoes? Do I need formal clothes? What if I suddenly need something I decided not to bring?

And then there are the endless college packing lists.

There are so many videos on TikTok and Instagram telling you what you “need” for college. One person says you absolutely need something, while another says they brought it and never used it. Then there are things I’ve never even heard of, like a Woozoo fan, that apparently belong on every student’s dorm checklist. The more videos I watch, the longer my packing list gets.

At some point, I started questioning everything I own.

Do I need this? Maybe.

Will I use it? Probably not.

Am I bringing it anyway? Absolutely.

I’ve also realized that packing is a lot harder when you’re not just packing for a trip. When I go on vacation, I know how long I’ll be gone and roughly what I’ll be doing. Packing for college is the complete opposite. I’m trying to pack for an entire semester without knowing exactly what my life is going to look like once I’m there.

I think part of what makes packing so stressful is that I’m trying to prepare for a life I haven’t experienced yet. I don’t know what my daily routine will look like. I don’t know what I’ll actually use every day, or what I’ll end up needing once I’m there. I don’t even know how much space I’m going to have.

But I still want to be prepared.

I don’t want to get to campus and suddenly realize I forgot something important. I don’t want to be sitting in my dorm thinking, “Why did I leave that at home?” So naturally, my solution is to bring everything.

Except I can’t actually bring everything.

My dorm room has limited space, and unfortunately, I don’t think Stevens is going to give me another closet just because I brought too many hoodies.

At this point, my mom has had to remind me that I can’t bring my entire room with me. Every time I decide that I need to bring something, I have to think about where it is actually going to go. It’s easy to say “I’ll just bring it,” until you look at the number of bags sitting in your room that all need to fit into one car.

There’s also something strange about deciding what to leave behind. My room at home has accumulated many things over the years, and now I suddenly have to choose what gets to come with me. Some things are useful, some things are sentimental, and others I honestly don’t know why I still have.

Eventually, I will have to stop packing and just trust that I’ll figure things out. If I forget something, I can get it later. If I bring too much, I’ll figure out what I don’t need. And if I end up bringing something I never use, at least I’ll know not to bring it next time.

Maybe that’s part of starting college. No matter how much I prepare, there’s still going to be a lot I won’t know until I actually get there.