Sarah's Campus Desk Set-Up in New Zealand

Homescreens & Office Setups
#1

Hi everyone, this is my desk on campus …

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I’m a PhD candidate at Victoria University of Wellington, in Wellington, New Zealand. I am researching political participation online by New Zealand women, so I spend a LOT of time at this desk on campus. And yes, my desk always looks this clean, I get teased for it, but I simply can’t work with a messy desk. My set-up involves the following:

  • A 2015 12" Retina MacBook (the ‘Adorable’) … the top model at the time
  • A Belkin stand for the MacBook
  • A USB-C extension cable I got off Amazon
  • An Apple HDMI multi-port USB-C adapter
  • A Logitech solar keyboard (the K750)
  • An Apple Wireless Magic Mouse (non-lightning, uses batteries)
  • An old non-HD Apple Cinema Display (I also have a DCI-HDMI dongle so it plugs into the USB-C Adapter) … I absolutely DREAM of a better monitor than this. But, you know, student budgets.
  • Behind the monitor plugged into the USB hub there is a small laptop hard drive for TimeMachine
  • A 10.5" iPad Pro (with an Apple Pencil and a smart keyboard)
  • Apple AirPods
  • And this photo was taken on my iPhone X

I have the MacBook display as my primary display as I just adore the quality of the screen, even though it is quite small, and just use the old Cinema Display as a reference monitor. Plus I can easily move the MacBook in or out on the desk depending on where I want it.
Personally my dream set up would be a 5K 27" iMac on the desk with a 12.9" iPad Pro for mobility, but that will have to wait till the PhD is done I suspect :slightly_smiling_face:

Anyway, this is my first post here … so hi! :slight_smile:

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#2

Welcome and thanks for posting your setup! Very cool!

Do you remember the specific brand or link of your USB-C extension cable? I tried one off amazon that didn’t work and have heard these usually have issues. I’d love to get the adapter off/behind the desk and an extension would be perfect. Thanks!

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#3

Thanks for the welcome! And unfortunately Amazon appears to no longer stock the item when I went to check my old orders, but here is a screen-grab of what I got: Cable

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#4

I admire how clean you keep your desk! I know it’s a cliche to say so…but it must be so much easier to work without the visual distraction that piles of Paper results in.

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#5

Thanks ever so much, Meredith! And yes, I try to make as much of my work as paperless as possible so that things are as minimalist as I can maintain. It also means that in the situations where I do use some paper, I can focus singularly on that, no distractions.

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