Hello,
I personally love the ECS series of desktop replacement laptops (called Desknotes or i-buddie) they have. I was recently travelling and had to work quite a lot on my machine. It took a serious pounding, between the flight, moving from room to office back to room, on for hours and hours at a time, plus the occasional fall to the floor from the night table, and no worries.
As I mentioned in another post, only issue is the battery - it doesn't have one so you have to plug it in. Or get the external pack. But given that you'll have power in your dorm, your classes, the library, etc. I doubt it wouldbe a problem. That way you have the advantages of a desktop, but the portability of a laptop. Cheaper too because they don't have the cost of the battery and there is more room inside the caseo for cooling, etc. ALso uses desktop RAM and Processor which reduces the cost as well.
I have had two of them, currently the A928 model.
Models
That's my suggestion