My Laptop, A Sticker Story

I was sitting in my writing class a few weeks ago when I had an awkward conversation. Granted, most of my conversations are awkward, but this one probably lands in the top twenty. A random guy walked up to me, and I mean a genuinely random person, and started talking about The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and how it was cool that I liked that show. I thought to myself, “How does he know this about me? Did I put that on Facebook? Wait, I don’t know him at all. Does my outfit look extra 90’s today?” I was definitely not happy, free, confused, and lonely (Taylor Swift style). I was more confused, questioning, creeped out and incredibly curious.

After about two minutes I asked just how exactly this guy knew that Fresh Prince held reign over my Saturday mornings for years. He paused for a couple seconds, more than likely noting how my face formed a curiously terrified expression. “Oh,” he said. “I saw it on your laptop.”

In less than five seconds, everything made sense to me. That day was the first time I brought my laptop out into the wild that is a DePaul University classroom to be seen by the world. You see, I was initially timid to bring my laptop anywhere. I had a gaggle of stickers that were all very close to me. I didn’t want my passions to get judged by a bunch of 12 year-olds at whatever Starbucks I was pretending to do homework in because then I’d feel like a part of me was being judged by unrecognizable faces.

So anyway, I finally stopped caring if people knew the things that I felt most passionate about (hello One Direction stickers) and proudly whipped my laptop open amongst my peers. Though, like I said, I was a bit shy in the beginning, I started to love the boldness of my stickers more and more each day.

As time has gone on, more classes have been attended and less cares have been given. I have actually made quite the number of friends simply based off of my laptop stickers. For a quick story, I was sitting in Brownstones struggling to do my math homework (Shout-out to Professor Jim “Jimmy” Scheidhauer) and three different people came up to me saying how much they loved a sticker or two of mine. Not only did I feel like I made new friends, but I was also flattered.

So basically, I’m an advocate for laptop stickers. Any shape, size, style, whatever. They’re relatively low in price—with companies like Redbubble offering 50% off your total after you purchase six stickers, which is a lot easier than it might sound. Or, if you’re feeling rebellious, head on over to Columbia, like some of my friends have done, and grab the seemingly endless amounts of cool promotional stickers that they hand out. They’re so artsy over there that even a school sticker looks like a concert poster.

Below are some of my favorite laptop sticker looks at DePaul University (outside of my own laptop, of course!).

Kristin Stahlke:

Her favorite sticker: Vampire Weekend sticker because it’s her favorite band (middle)

Bethani Randolph:

Her favorite sticker: The Legend of Zelda sticker because of the childhood memories (far left corner)

Lucy Steven:

Her favorite sticker: Chicago Blackhawks because they’re her favorite sports team (middle)

Sara Autio’s laptop:

Why she loves having a statement sticker: “I feel like it tells everyone that I love photography and that it’s my one true passion. A really important person gave it to me so it makes me happy to have that reminder of them.”

- Leah