Back in the travel days of yore, when people who flew coach could actually afford to check full-size luggage on airliners, trips often were memorialized by destination stickers that tourists would affix to thei r bags. They were like mini-postcards with glue, each with its own tale – “Paris is for Lovers”; “Aloha! from Hawaii”; “Greetings From Miami – The Sun and Fun Capital of the World!”
Today, the clunky suitcase has largely been replaced by the soft, squishy bag that can be crammed into an overhead compartment. But for the gadabout college student of today, one accessory-on-the-go works just fine as a place to display a mobile diary: the laptop.
Just as the traveler of yesteryear would reveal a little about her- or himself by the stickers on their bags, students you see toting laptops around the FGCU campus reveal a little – and sometimes, even a lot – about themselves by the removable artwork they plaster on PC or Apple covers.
For bioengineering major Sara Biro (A), laptop stickers “remind me of home” – her hometown of Muskego, Wis., near Milwaukee (which explains the Miller Lite sticker in honor of a flagship beer brewed there). “It’s an expression of my interests that may not seem so obvious,” she said.
Henry Silva Quevedo (B), a software engineering student, has plastered his 5-year-old laptop with stickers reflecting “each event and each new place I work.”
“As you can see, it has been places,” Quevedo said. “Each sticker has its own story, and over the years, it has become sort of a scrapbook/memento of my college years.”
Memories he can take with him the rest of his life and, for air-travel purposes, still be counted as a personal carry-on – no extra charge.