College Student's Guide to Music

Check out our other College Students guides including what to keep in your car, first day, finals and everything else.

What you will need
Internet
iTunes
Speakers
iPod or MP3

Internet
First things first, I am not saying that you should illegally download music. I am personally using the internet to find new music, not to steal it. I would HIGHLY recommend both Pandora and Grooveshark. If you are okay with listening to music that you will most likely like but not necessarily know, Pandora is great. You enter a song, genre, or artist and Pandora will generate similar songs to the one that you chose. This is the Perfect way to learn about new music. It also has a bookmarking tab. This way you can save songs that you liked. GrooveShark, alternatively, is for specific songs. It is kind of like having everyone peron's iTunes in the world. You can search for artists you like and songs that are not even released on iTunes are on there. This is a great thing if you like your certain artists. There is also a Radio feature on GrooveShark. It is not quite as impressive as the Pandora Radio but Grooveshark is still great. You can save your playlists and listen to them at any time.

iTunes
This is essential to legally listen to music. Even though I am not representing a large population, I still buy CD's. I know that everyone now uses iTunes, because you can buy one song off of an album, but sometimes a full CD is better. I do buy a lot of singles on iTunes. iTunes is also great now with the Genius recommendations. Genius looks at what songs you have bought, and gives you other songs that are similar to those songs. Another awesome feature of Genius is that it makes playlists based off of a song. You can have a song selected and Genius will make you an entire playlist of songs like that one. The reason that I tell you all of this is that I have found that music, is the key to having a happy life in college. This may sound funny, but music can truly make any situation better. If you are angry and you listen to calming music, it calms you down. There are even places that have music therapy. But I feel why spend the extra money when you could just as easily find your own music.

SPEAKERS
Speakers are among the most essential parts of music...obviously. However, the type of speaker is quite a personal preference. I personally have a few options. I have laptop speakers that plug into my laptop and I have seperate iPod speakers. The laptop speakers are permanently on my desk, plugged in so that all I have to do is plug in the headphone jack and begin my musical listening experience. The iPod speakers I have, on the other hand, are Solar Powered and portable. This way I am able to listen to and charge my iPod no matter where I go. I would say that every college student needs some form of speaker. The reason is simply that, even if you only use it twice, you will definitely want to be able to listen to music. My roommate usually took care of the music, but when he left for the weekend it was eerily quiet in the dorm. I had to play my music off of my little laptop speakers, and it was just not enough.

iPod or MP3 player
I would say that every college student also needs something, anything, that allows him to listen to music outside of on his or her computer. The reason is that, no matter how small your campus, walking across it alone is no fun. Music tends to make it a little easier. I would also recommend an extra set of headphones. I personally like the in ear ones because I can put in one ear so that I can still hear what is happening around me.