What gadgets to take?

[Brendan]

Just wondering... Cos I'm a very gadget reliant guy; I have an iPad, wii u, kindle and iPhone. For college, what stuff is good to have? I'm not due to start at college for a while yet but as I will be applying next year I'd like to start saving up in good time for anything that is necessary to have like a laptop. Is a laptop important for homework and studying? And as for entertainment, is it worth taking all my tablets and my wii u and its games? And what about for sea? :P I don't have any idea what facilities colleges and fleets offer so I just wanna clarify so I don't die of boredom as soon as I get there..

[EH75]

Laptop is a necessity for both college and sea for doing work on. At college I would take all of the items you mentioned and for sea I would probably take them all, apart from the wii. Seems a bit much to carry a games console to a ship but then I don't really play games that much. I guess if you had space in your bag you could take it but travelling lighter is better tbh. Really depends what company you get sponsored by as to what facilities you will have on board which obviously influences what you need to take. Anyway Hatchorder wrote a good article on what to take to sea here: http://www.officercadet.com/content....to-take-to-sea

[Brendan]

Cheers mate didn't see that post before. As for the games console, I guess you've gotta point but the wii u itself is pretty light, the games not so much though haha they're the ones that fill up a ton of space. I play games daily so idk depends on how much free time I have which I'm guessing won't be much

[Bulman]

What gadgets to take?

Take it all to college as said, you can't have to much as long as you're able to get it back home haha.

As for on board it depends who you're with, cruise ships I wouldn't but others you may want to (dry ships especially). As long as you have space for it take it, but don't forget you'll probably collect a lot of junk/pressies/fun stuff on your trip so save room especially if you're flying back!

Met some officers with ps3's on board and it's not at all unusual to take a console with you but suppose as a cadet you could be doing reports instead of gaming but me time is just as important!

Laptop is also a must!

[EH75]

Totally depends on the ship and the crew how much free time you have. I had quite a lot because they didn't make me do much outside my watches but I know people who had a lot less free time. If you are taking games best thing to do is to take them out the cases and get one of those cd wallet cases to carry them all. Saves loads of space. Of course some ships might even have games consoles onboard already. Mine didn't but not outwith the realms of possibility. All we had was a karaoke machine. Unfortunately. Once you know who your sponsor is people will probably be able to advise about on board facilities etc.

[TheSevenSeas]

Rule 1#
Never expect any free time! It's work work work...

I kid, I kid. But seriously, don't expect to be spending days on end playing your Call of battlefields or whatever they're named... :-)
Laptop for college is a must. Like, you wouldn't go to university without one right?
Game console wise, bring it if you feel like you can't function without it but you don't want to be that guy who's always in his room playing on his Wii U. The first many weeks of college revolve around getting to know your classmates and environment.

I have gotten a lot of joy out of my Kindle in my time although I wish they had more books relevant to this industry. They have some don't get me wrong but they will not get you through the course... Which is a shame because of the fat costs of books these days.

Good luck!

[ETwhat?]

For going to college it is pretty much just a case of what you can carry, as has been said try not to be too antisocial with it although spare controllers and using it in a common room is a good way of being social with it. If your in college accomadation be aware that some of them block the comms port that you need for online gamming so that will limit some use and you will need to bring your own tv for any consoles

At sea, consider that you may have very limited, very expensive or no internet access again you wont be online gamming with it, you may not have a tv in your cabin so it would be useless. I wouldn't take anything that doesn't provide a unique function, so either out of ipad, iphone, and kindle you really only need two, given that all these need to be carried in hand luggage along with all the paperwork for the cadetship weight starts to play a point.

If you really are big on games consider a decent laptop that can manage some of them, you have to carry it anyway