DigsMagazine.com | lounge: ON WEEDING: SCHOOL STUFF page3

Le Menu du Junk
Below is a list of common school items that you are likely to have lying around after graduation. You know you should have tossed most of what you made your parents haul back to their house. I have focused mainly on paper items here.

Item	Shelf-Life	Reason to keep/toss
School Stuff
--Textbooks	Forever	Your professional library should reflect what you studied in school. Keep all the books you spared from the Book Buy-Back scam that textbook stores run at the end of each semester.
--Class notes	Three months	Unless you are continuing on to a related graduate or post-graduate program, your notes will only be taking up space. Yes, they were helpful in the past, but what is the likelihood that you will read through your notes after you graduate? Let's be honest now.
-- Tests	Three months	Along with notes, the usefulness of tests (the actual paper copies) expire soon after school ends. If you are continuing in a career that relates to your degree, it is every employers hope that you have synthesized the content of those tests. Keep them around if you continue on in an advanced degree program.
--Coursepacks	Six months	If you have some absolutely relevant articles that you can use for work or continuing education purpose, keep the coursepacks for a year. If the three-inch thick flimsy tomes are bending under their own weight and making your otherwise stellar book collection look sloppy, jot down the title, author, and publication data of your favorite articles, and toss the pack. Unless they are unpublished papers, you will be able to retrieve the article from a university library.