As some will tell you through your college years, "Life is all about your approach." Well, laundry is no different. So, here's your three basic approaches to the laundry lifestyle of a college student:

1. "This is my calling" - these are those of us who have resigned to the fact that we will be doing laundry for the rest of our lives and so turn laundry into our greatest educational accomplishment.
2. "This is for them" - these are those of us who can go for weeks on end without caring whether are clothes are clean or not, but we realize that while the odor doesn't bother us, it bothers those around us, so we wash our clothes out of the kindness of hearts.
3. "This is for now" - these are those of us who go through college believing that laundry is a temporary evil and once we get married our spouse can do it all.

Whatever your approach to doing laundry, the bottom line is that we all have to do it at some point in college. However, if you're anything like me, you grew up overseas where you had house help that would do your laundry for you (not to mention clean your room during the day while you were at school) and doing your own laundry is either a foreign concept to you, or a new one. If that's the case (or you've just been up studying for the last 72 hours straight for finals and can't remember how to clean your clothes) this is for you.

8 Basic Steps to Laundry (no homework required):

1. First off, make sure you have everything you need:

Quarters - if you don't have enough, you can usually go to a store on campus or the business office and exchange bills for coins (some laundry rooms and dorms also have change machines for students to use)
Soap - there's typically two kinds of soap: dry and wet. Some people will argue forever that one's better than the other - honestly, it doesn't make that big of a difference. The easiest way to do laundry is to buy the "tablets" that come in packages of two and are usually good for one or two loads - then you don't have to lug a bottle or a bin of soap down to the laundry room.
A laundry bag or plastic basket - you can use this to cart your laundry to the laundry room and then use it to cart it back after you've folded it. If you don't have one already, these can be bought at a local Target, K-Mart, or Wal-Mart.

2. Pile all the clothes from under your bed, on your bed, in the closet, and around the room into one big pile. Once you've done that you have the first choice to make: does it look like you'll have to do two loads or three loads? Quick rule of thumb, knee high pile is two loads, thigh high pile is three loads (of course it depends on the size of your washers).

3. After making the decision in #1, begin to divide clothes into two piles: lights (white, light beige, and gray) and darks (blue, black, etc.) - if doing three loads, do three piles: lights, brights, and darks.

4. Choose a pile, and put it in a washer. Some say your clothes will get cleaner if you add the soap first, let the water begin running, and then throw clothes in as the washer fills up. While it might have a minor effect, it's not a big enough difference - so feel free to throw the clothes in the washer, pour or drop some soap on top and then turn on the water. But, before turning on the water make sure you select the right settings!

5. Some have likened the panel on a washing machine to the controls in a helicopter - confusing as anything and you don't know what half of them do. If you want to be safe and make sure that your white shirts don't come out pink, put the setting on cold water. If you're doing a load of pure whites (undershirts, underwear, socks) and maybe a few grays, feel free to put the setting on warm or hot. The warmer the water, the cleaner your clothes tend to get - but they're also more likely to bleed, so be careful. For your darks or brights load, I would definitely suggest leaving the settings on cold. Once you've done this, the next thing to do is drop your quarters in and push the start button. If you think about it, bring homework to do while you wait for the 45 minutes that it will take for your clothes to wash. If you don't, leave them - who's really going to steal your wet, soggy underwear? - and come back 40 minutes or so later.

6. After the washing machine has stopped bouncing and moving all over the washing room, seemingly alive, open it up and grab your clothes. Throw them in the closest available dryer - no sense in caring wet, soggy clothes all the way across the room if you don't have to - then close the door.

7. Just like with the washer, you have choices on buttons with the dryer as well. Sometimes you have to put the money in the dryer first before it will do anything, so go ahead and do that now. Typically a load takes anywhere between 25 and 35 minutes to dry - you'll just have to try it the first few times to find out how well it works. You're typically safe going with the highest setting of heat - it'll dry your clothes the quickest. However, be careful. If you have any silk items, dressy clothes, or something that's not made out of your basic cotton/polyester material, you may need to choose a lower setting. If you're worried, check the tags in the clothes you're not sure about - the tags will usually say what setting to use. If you're lucky, you may get a few other people with silk shirts or pants that you can share a dryer with, instead of paying more money for a few pieces of clothing. After you've chosen the setting, go ahead and push start.

8. Now, an hour and 15 minutes or so later, your clothes are washed and dried and the last thing to do is fold them. Typically, this area of Laundry 101 depends on your personality. Some just throw their socks and underwear in a messy drawer. Others need to have them meticulously folded and in neat piles. Go with whichever will cause you the least amount of stress (meaning, approaching finals week you may decide that folding you socks isn't worth it). As far as shirts and pants go, there's also two ways to do it. If you hang everything in your closet, you'll never have to fold your clothes and they won't get wrinkled - however, that usually means you have to have a lot of hangers and a lot of closet space. What I typically do is hang my pants - they don't fit very well in a drawer folded anyways - and fold my shirts. This method usually takes me about five to ten minutes to fold a load of laundry - but if you're waiting on another load or you can do your folding in front of your favorite TV show, then it goes by quickly.

So there you have it - how to become the man or woman you've always dreamed of and do your own laundry. Well okay, so laundry may not be something you'll ever aspire to, but it's one of those necessary evils to get you through college. Good luck!

Daniel Ostendorff grew up in Nairobi, Kenya and is an Associate with MK2MK. He is currently attending John Brown University in Northwest Arkansas.