Earlier quoted context omitted.
"UChicago is not known for being a party school"... lol The unofficial motto is "where fun goes to die"
Why does fun go there to die?
Intense academics.
I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
101–110 of 341 posts
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#102This is not surprising to me a graduate of a school with a similar profile to Duke. The student body is composed of highly wealthy domestic students but also insanely wealthy international student body.
Insanely wealthy international student seems to be a pretty common component of the competitive STEM universities. I vividly recall every fall the crazy number of wrecks by fresh students after "Daddy gave me a Maserati" with no idea how to drive it -- always asian. And then in the spring a couple of the poorest international students would commit suicide when they flunked out and all their families savings back home…
new nouveau riche
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#103All kinds of nice things appear in a college dorm's dumpster on move-out day -- especially if said college attracts a lot of non-local or international students who will be flying. Selling takes a lot of time and planning ahead, shipping also requires time (you have to box it up and take it to the post office or FedEx) -- and it might cost more than the item's worth.
When I was in college I found a perfectly working DVD player in a dumpster on move-out day, and I wasn't looking particularly hard -- only casually glancing at the most obviously visible items in the nearest dumpsters I happened to walk by. I could easily imagine finding $thousands worth of items if you go to a big campus with the right student demographics on the right day and systematically search all the dumpsters.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#104I live near UPenn. Some locals call the end of the academic year "Penn Christmas". I definitely see some resentment, but having made an international move in my life I have sympathy for it. You need to buy things to live, shipping that stuff when you move away is often very expensive and time consuming, so you condense your life down to a few suitcases and do the best you can.
Once upon a time, this was a thing for pretty much the entire city of New York: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_Day_(New_York_City)
Amazing!
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#105I used to live in some apartments near the university of washington. Every june whole apartments worth of stuff would end up in the 'free pile' whenever the international students would move out.
One year I pulled a gaming PC with a current gen nvidia card in it, two current playstations and six current xboxen out of the pile (straight to ebay, minus the gaming PC which I gifted to a friends kid) along with some household items (pots and pans, some of that wire storage shelfing) that I still use.
Hell my current apt which is across town from the university (though I guess seattle u is semi close...) I still see the same kind of stuff end up in the free pile at the beginning of just about every summer and the end of some semesters. I can't tell if it's kids that communing outside of the neighborhood to school or potentially some 'travelling nurses' working at the nearby hospital, but the eating is good.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#106There are more rich people in the US than when some of us middle-aged people were younger, the distribution of wealth has gotten much more uneven, while the numbers of rich have gotten larger. So, yeah, a lot more just really rich students than there used to be, rich enough to think nothing of throwing out luxury goods, finding it more convenient than doing something else with them. Then the increase of wealthy inter…
I definitely remember walking through the dorm parking lot when I was in grad school and noticing that at least half of the cars were much nicer than the car I was driving.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#107Not surprising. I remember being an undergrad when my BA was ending. I was out-of-state, my nearest relative was several hours away, and I basically only had enough space to pack up from my room whatever could fit in my car. I don't think I threw out much , but there were definitely some things that were resigned to the bin because I simply didn't have anywhere else to put them. For example, I'm pretty sure I threw o…
The reason you can't give away a mattress is bedbugs. If you know what to look for, a bedbug-ridden mattress can easily be avoided. And you can also buy protective breathable covers that keep the bedbugs either in or out. But most people don't know what to look for, or don't want the liability of being wrong.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#108The dollar amount may be higher but the phenomenon is nothing new. In undergrad I remember scavenging a bunch of lumber to make a bad frame. In grad school the end of the spring semester was a time for me to go drive around the undergrad apartments looking for stuff.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#109I live near a major university town and one of the highlights of my year is move-out week. At dusk, a friend and I go dumpster diving at the apartments around campus. You definitely wear gloves and clothing you don't mind throwing out afterward, but MOST of the garbage is cleaner than you'd think.
Usually the trash is pretty well picked-through by the time we get to it, but every year, we drive off with a pickup truck full of stuff. Common items I typically find are: clothing (especially coats), backpacks (which sometimes have money and other valuables in the small pockets), food (unopened), bathroom supplies, cleaning supplies, notebooks, bins/organizers, tools, sports equipment, batteries (new in box), etc. Oh, and alcohol. So much alcohol.
There is lots more that I typically don't bother with because I have no use for, things like furniture, vacuums, lamps, "items of a personal nature," etc. Basically anything you can imagine fitting into an apartment, you are likely to find in the dumpster.
For some reason, I have yet to find a laptop or anything particularly in line with my other hobbies, but the general day-to-day stuff is quite plentiful if you're willing to take the time to find it, and possibly get a little dirty.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#110Friend of a friend works in student accommodation (UK). Apparently Chinese students leave massive amounts of high end stuff when they go home. They're from rich families and can't/have no need to transport the stuff back to China.