The 4th of July has come and gone and next on the calendar is Back to School.

My husband and I are at the University of Georgia with our oldest daughter attending her freshman orientation and we are even spending the night in a dormitory room. One thing I noticed when we checked into the room was the lack of a land line telephone. As I was trying to hook up my laptop to the internet I found the old phone cord and it had a label saying “This Is NOT An Active Phone Line”. This was confirmed at one of the sessions, when the director of housing said that this was the first year that UGA would not have land lines in the dorm rooms.

During today’s sessions there was lots of conversation about safety and notifying our children if there was a campus emergency. This all seemed well thought out, but as an iPhone user I know how unreliable cell service can be, especially in old buildings. I spent all day in the Tate Student Center which had both an old and a new section and I had no data service on my iPhone all day. This lack of service was quite disconcerting when the school was counting on cell phones as the main source of communication for emergency situations.

Since this is my first child that is going off to college, my mind began imagining all kinds of situations that would require a land line or a reliable cell phone signal. What if there was a family emergency, a terrorist action or a tornado in the area and we couldn’t reach her?

We will soon be shopping for all the items to set up her new dorm room such as a mini refrigerator, matching comforters, and even a new laptop computer. After today’s experience I will be adding a zBoost personal to our dorm room shopping list.