There are two major gift-giving occasions in June: Fathers’ Day and graduation from various levels of education. This has led to the “Dads and Grads” phrasing heard in just about every marketing platform out there. As cliché as it is, though, there’s probably someone out there looking for gift suggestions for one or both of these groups. Since we covered gifts for “Dads” earlier in the month, let’s look at “Grads” this time around.

High School Grads

For many high school graduates, college is right around the corner. What better way to get your grad started on the right track to their higher education than by making sure their most important educational tool—their computer—is in top form? Here’s a short list of great gift ideas to make undergraduate life a little more bearable.

• An External Hard Drive - Picture this: it’s the night before your Organic Chemistry paper is due—a paper that’s worth 51% of your grade. You put the final touches on it and have now brought your laptop to the computer lab in order to print. Except, rather than the normal screen and power-up sounds, all you get is “whirr…click…whirrrrrr…click”. That’s a dead hard drive, and it’s not very likely that you’re getting your paper back from it. Good thing you have an OWC External Storage Solution. As long as you’ve backed up (and with an important paper like this, you better have!) your file is safe and sound.
• More memory - Let’s face it, college students are invariably broke, so buying the latest and greatest computer every year is probably not within budget. Dollar-for-dollar, upgrading the memory still remains the best way to get more performance out of the computer they already have. For a fraction of the price of a new computer, a memory upgrade a simple memory upgrade can breathe new life into their current machine.
• Software - having a computer is great, but without software, it doesn’t do a whole heck of a lot. Microsoft Office seems to be pretty much the de facto software package in use for document transfer, but you may also want to consider Apple’s iWork suite for more Mac-like document creation. Utility software, such as Drive Genius can help when your computer starts acting funny at inopportune times, and if your student is going to be working in an environment where Windows is mandatory, you may want to look into compatibility software, so they can run their Windows applications alongside their Mac ones or just use their Mac-formatted drives on a PC.
• Accessories - Of course, all studying and no fun makes for a pretty dull college experience. Odds are, your student either has, or will have, an iPod, an iPhone, or an iPad. Fortunately, there are a myriad of accessories to protect or enhance their iDevice, helping them get the most enjoyment out of it as possible.

College Grads

While pretty much all of the gifts suggested above will also work for the college graduate (especially those doing post-graduate work), you may also want to consider a gift certificate for some decent food. Between all those student loans and the fact that they’ve likely just spent the last 4+ years living on little more than ramen noodles and canned beans; they could probably use a good meal.