I have the old promedia 4.1's in my dorm. It's really not that bad - you can stick the woofer under your desk, a couple satellites on top, but the hard part is trying to find places to stick the other speakers. I had to build a couple ghetto stands to stick my back two on. I also tried your other suggestion about just setting up the front two. It was nice and it worked, but like NIk I felt something was missing after being used to surround, so I brought them back after a couple weeks. If you have the space bring your 5.1 setup, if not setting up two would work, but don't go buy another 2.1 set just for college. You already spent enough on your current one, why not use it?