I asked 13 people about the things they have carried from college into adulthood –and found their modern day equivalents

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One of the highlights of the summer before college was trotting off to my local Linens N Things to outfit my new home, a triple dorm room in the Little Building at Emerson College in Boston. Armed with a list of must-haves and strongly suggested essentials, I filled a shopping cart with a lot of stuff I’d use immediately (jersey twin XL sheets) and stuff that I’d eventually throw away after four years (the very same sheets, useless after college when you will never see a twin XL bed again.)

Most, if not all, of the stuff I bought didn’t make it out of Boston, save for a pop-up laundry hamper that did a tour of duty in San Francisco, surviving three moves in four years, before being relegated to its final resting place, the garbage can.