Hey, I'm Alex and I'm going to be a freshman in college this upcoming year. I'm going to majoring in International Business. To ensure I make the most of my academic experience, I need to make sure I have everything I'd ever need or want in my dorm room. My “Ultimate Dorm Setup” would have all kinds of technology to make the room exciting and better than any other out there.

Here are the six main things that I would love in my dorm room to make it the Ultimate Dorm Setup.

My first recommendation is Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student edition. It'll allow me to take notes effortlessly in class with a laptop and write papers when I get back to my room without ever having to use a pencil. It would allow for greater organization due to the fact that I would not have pieces of paper falling out of a binder or book - instead all those pieces of paper would be right on my laptop thanks to OneNote 2007.

Office 2007 will allow me to stay organized and make my work look more presentable for class. Every application has an array of features that are all extremely easy to use, but look extremely professional. It even has an encyclopedia search, dictionary, and thesaurus built-in as research tools that will connect me to online resources. If I ever need to find information, I can easily open the research functionality and search for whatever I need.

Not only would I be using Office 2007 in college, but I will also be using it after college in a work environment. By using the suite all the time in college now, when I start working, it will allow me to focus more on working rather than trying to learn how to build a spreadsheet. With all the features of Office 2007, it is nearly impossible to not to easy understand how to get started and to use it well.

A dorm room would be empty without a sound system of some sort, which is why I recommend the iHome iH8 Clock Radio. It has so many different features ranging from alarms to a fading sleep mode. It even has a dock for an iPod so I can listen to all the music I want from my iPod by simply docking it and scrolling to find the music I want to listen to. It also comes with a remote so I can be working on homework on the other side of the room and still be able to change the song by just pressing a single button. No more getting up to change the song and losing concentration on my homework! It's also small enough that I can simply put it on a night stand and use it as my music system, wake-up alarm, and clock.

I'll never have to worry about being late to class in the morning because I'll wake up to my favorite songs every morning with the iPod playlist wake-up feature. If people ever come over, they can just plug in their iPod and we can all hear their music as well. If they have another mp3 player, like a Microsoft Zune, they can hook up it up through the line-in jack on the back. The iHome iH8 is definitely a necessity in any dorm and it'll definitely be in mine.

The third recommendation for the Ultimate Dorm Room is the Canon PIXMA MP470 multifunction printer because it has a scanner, copier, and printer in one convenient package. If I ever needed to scan a page of one of my textbooks, it would be extremely simple because all I would have to do is put the page I want to scan in the scanner, click scan, and watch the image go straight to my computer. No more having to go to Kinko's to scan or print a project. I can do it all straight from my dorm room with amazing quality. If I miss a day of class, I can copy notes from a friend in no time at all. Even price of ink isn't too steep, which in the long run will help my budget because ink on most printers can cost a fortune. The small size and the affordability makes it even more worthy of being in my dorm room - it will be like having a mini Kinko's in my room.

Another product that I would recommend would have to be a Sony Bravia 32" LCD TV. Every dorm room needs a TV and why not enjoy 32 inches of high-definition TV? The size of the TV makes it perfect to either place on a desk or hang on a wall while still being able to see the entire picture. Its high definition picture will allow me to watch Blu-ray movies in high definition and enjoy every second of it.

If there ever were a big sporting event on TV, I could invite people to my dorm to all watch it together on the TV and have a small party. It would allow my roommate and me to relax n our room on the weekend when we don't want to go out. There will be plenty of times where my roommate or I will have nothing to do, so we can just lie on our beds and watch TV comfortably. Also, I can hook up the TV to my laptop for team projects or for when I want to work on a huge computer monitor.

The fifth product that I'd buy would be the Sony HDR-SR12 video camera. It's so I can remember all of college in high definition. I could take it wherever I go and I could even just use in the dorm room to record the funny events that may occur throughout the years. I would use it for classes that need presentations to be done to make them look more professional (easy with PowerPoint 2007), as well as entertaining for those watching. It's even relatively affordable and has a high build quality. These attributes make it hard to pass up. Being able to watch memories in HD can't be beat, especially four years from now when I find my movies and watch them - it'll be like I was in college again.

The final product I'd recommend is a Macbook Pro or high-end PC notebook. College students need an easy way to research and do their homework without having to go to the library or computer lab. The Macbook Pro is great because it has built in Wi-Fi so I can roam the campus and still be able to do all my homework and research. I could take it to classes so I can type up notes or even use it to find out information about what is being lectured by just going onto the internet during the lecture. With a high-end PC notebook, you can use OneNote 2007 that comes with Office 2007 Home and Student edition to collect all your notes in one place.

While it is in my dorm room, I would be able to watch movies, burn DVD's and CD's, listen to music, or even have a video chat with a friend that is across the country. The build quality is also good so I won't have to worry about it breaking down on me during the week of finals I'll need it most for studying.

All of these products create the Ultimate Dorm Setup for me because they would allow me to do well academically in college, but also set me up for good years after college. It'll help me preserve my memories and gain experience in certain areas that I would need for working later on. I'll have things to keep me occupied when I don't have to study, and I have everything I'd ever need to make sure I can get the best and most efficient study time possible.