Backpacks were originally used to help soldiers carry around things that they would need during battle and have been helpful to all people who need an easier, hands-free method of carrying heavy items. They have evolved from military use items, to camping items, to items students use to carry books, and even into fashion statements. In a college setting, a backpack is a useful thing to own, as trying to carry all of your necessary textbooks and notebooks around from home to school, and from one class to another would be a difficult feat without one.
The backpack is not simply an item that one purchases to be helpful, but an item that represents the typical student. From the time a student begins kindergarten and carries their first Disney character backpack to and from school, this meaning begins to evolve. From elementary school through college, students lug back and forth, from home to school, their homework, textbooks, and school supplies. At the college level, school is no longer something that is easy, a student cannot simply attend and expect to pass as they may have done at the high school level. In college, the weight of one’s backpack and the weight that a backpack puts on a student’s shoulders is literally representative of the course load, amount of work, and book “weight” that they are trying to carry throughout the semester. When leaving class for the day, the backpack represents and reminds the student that even though their classes might be over, their work is not. They must go home, open up their backpacks, unload all of the “weight,” and begin reading long chapters from textbooks and working on their papers.
