f**king books Options

[brooklyneast05]

there's probably 191223423353 topics of people bitching about this...

but i f**king get pissed off buying books. i just bought my italian book and it's like 300 pages total and a little paper work book and it cost f**king 196 dollars. WHAT THE HELL. THIS IS BULLSHIT. i have no clue why this book should cost as much as it does. it's not even a big hard cover book.

f**k this. so uh, have you bought your books? were you surprised by any of the prices? did your smallest most useless class end up costing you more than your actual major classes?

chick in line in front of me, her total cost was like 800+ dollars. i felt worse for her.

[Tung]

I usually save alot of money on textbooks by using my resources. We have interlibrary loans and it links to all of the colleges in California, so I can check it out that way. I also always check if my public library have the book I need, so I don't have to buy it. Another thing I do is, I'll buy the book, and make photo copies of the pages, well my sister does it for me, cuz she works at a copy place. After I make the copies, I return the book. Of course this doesn't work with sealed wrapper books, but those books I usually borrow at the library anyways.

Most of my friends spend about $300-$400 a quarter on books, while I'll sometimes spend $0 or under $50. lol.

Also my college library also has the book on 2 hour reserves, so I don't mine going to the library and checking it out and studying for 2 hours and then returning it. It's better than paying $200 for a book just to have comfort of studying it at home.

[Joanne]

I don't have any super expensive books this year (probably because I'm just a freshman who's taking pretty easy courses first semester...), so I'm not too pissed off. Plus I bargained with this girl to lower her prices, so I'm going to get them 22% cheaper than how much the bookstore is selling the used ones for. =D

I am angry that I can't find any of the books I need for my English or Graphic Design courses, though! The English book is written by my prof and the bookstore doesn't carry it anymore or something. Ughhhh!!!!

[hi-C]

Most of my books for the last two years I was in school I found at a discount bookstore =\ Buying off the internet works too, sometimes, but I don't like worrying about if it's actually going to get here, is the person just taking my money, etc... Hmm... you could use facebook, that marketplace thing, see if there are people at your school who are selling the books you need. They normally sell their old textbooks for way cheap.

[brooklyneast05]

I don't have any super expensive books this year (probably because I'm just a freshman who's taking pretty easy courses first semester...), so I'm not too pissed off. Plus I bargained with this girl to lower her prices, so I'm going to get them 22% cheaper than how much the bookstore is selling the used ones for. =D

I am angry that I can't find any of the books I need for my English or Graphic Design courses, though! The English book is written by my prof and the bookstore doesn't carry it anymore or something. Ughhhh!!!!

^i'm hoping i don't end up having to buy anything for my graphic design class. that will be a relief after classes like 3d design were i was spending $30-50 every couple weeks for supplies. that adds up fast.


i spent 350 today total, mostly because i only have 3 classes that require real books since my other two are studio art classes. not that it's really that great though since in the end i'll probably spend more than that in art supplies on those two classes.


that's a lot of copying tung. yeah this dumbass italian book is of course a sealed wrapper book

[Joanne]

Yeah, I'm afraid the books that are 'required' or 'recommended' for the Graphic Design course will turn out to be useless. But hopefully, if I ever do find them, they'll be interesting enough for me to read them. But I don't know... do these books sound interesting to you?:
“Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors & Students”
“The Elements of Typographic Style”
“A History of Graphic Design”

No? Yeah, I thought so. =(

[brooklyneast05]

maybe they will be really cool...probably not

i kept all my philosophy books last year because i liked them. none of them were over 20 bucks though either, so i didn't think there was much point in trying to sell back.

hopefully if you have to buy them you will actually use them. i bought two books last year for western civilization and i never did the reading once. complete waste of my money. never buy history books until you know you actually are gonna be tested on the reading.

[Tung]

^ Hah! I just checked and they have those books to check out at the library. If I had those books as requirements, I wouldn't have to pay a cent.

Hah, it's okay JC. It's not like I photocopy the ENTIRE book. I usually look at the Syllabus, and I'll copy what is required reading. Most of the time the books I need are at the library, since I am doing a search of ALL the libraries in California, so chances are they got the book. But it's usually 1-2 books to copy now and then. And I did say, my sister does it for me LOL.

Yeah if you're going to try to sell a book under $20 back, most likely you'll get $2-$5 back. No point. Just keep it.

lol I took a western civilization history class winter last year. I didn't even buy the "required" books. I ended up getting a B+ in that class lol.

[brooklyneast05]

^yeah i got a B+ too without doing any of the reading. every quiz was just over lecture notes, so the books were a complete waste of everyone's money.

Hah, it's okay JC. It's not like I photocopy the ENTIRE book. I usually look at the Syllabus, and I'll copy what is required reading. Most of the time the books I need are at the library, since I am doing a search of ALL the libraries in California, so chances are they got the book. But it's usually 1-2 books to copy now and then. And I did say, my sister does it for me LOL.

that's a pretty good system you have worked out there. i'll probably try that out because so many books end up to be useless and i only ever use them for a few chapters.

[Joanne]

Hey y'know what? I just checked my local library, and they have all three too! SWEEEET!

[mipadi]

I only had to buy two textbooks this semester, and as it turns out, they're both books I used in undergrad (and kept), so I have $0 in book costs.

Of course, I only have 3 classes...

[freeridefight]

Hell, my psychology book is 128 dollars. The thing doesn't even look like it should be 60 dollars.

[Teesa]

i have bought all of mine from amazon.com and have literally saved hundreds of dollars. this semester is also going to be less because my friend has a couple of science books that i need.

but the cost of books is seriously ridiculous. and i only get a little money back when i sell them back.

[*paperplane*]

Well, I'm not using my stats book, I'm using my Italian book from last semester still, and I've had good luck with used books (without even having to go online)...but, there's two political science books that I can't find online and are sold out of all the bookstores, so I'm probably going to have to pay full price on them. And there's 2 more books and a course packet I need to buy for history, and 1 more for English, but at least that will be cheap and I owned one already. Still, I think that makes 12 books I've had to get, not including the stats one I'm not bothering with.

And my lit anthology is f**king huge.

[hi-C]

^ I hate course packets. They're so retarded. Do any of you guys have a system called Blackboard or something like it? It's pretty convenient and a lot of my more technologically savvy professors used it to upload what essentially amounted to a course packet and then we got to print the pages for free, since there are a few places on campus with free printing.

What lit anthology do you have to buy?

[*paperplane*]

I think they used to use Blackboard, but now we're on WebCT. Most stuff gets posted up there, but some classes still require course packets anyway.

It's a Norton anthology of British literature. Despite being the 2nd volume, it's still like a million pages long...which wouldn't be too big of a deal if we weren't expected to bring it to class.

[Comptine]

I bought all my textbooks (save for a special publication for my Orgo Lab) on Half.com and saved well over 300 dollars. The books aren't pretty and new but are in great quality. I even bought this really good Orgo workbook that's like 300 pages of practice problems for like 30 dollars when it's retail price is 70 something.

I would've saved more if I had known my very expensive set of Orgo Chem textbook + solution manual is barely used by the professor.

[*absinthe*]

My books for this semester cost me about $500. They`re mostly math and science textbooks. But still.

[ReggieM]

ill have to wait and see how much my books are =/

[hi-C]

It's a Norton anthology of British literature. Despite being the 2nd volume, it's still like a million pages long...which wouldn't be too big of a deal if we weren't expected to bring it to class.

I feel your pain. I had to take the Norton poetry anthology to an interpretation class sophomore year for the first half of the fall semester. That was massive. When I took Brit Lit, we used the Longman anthologies, I believe. We definitely used them in Brit Lit II; I don't remember Brit Lit I that well since that class was horrible.

[Joanne]

How much are you guys' tuitions this semester? =\

[NoSex]

How much are you guys' tuitions this semester? =\

$3,600. Think god for community school, holy shit. I mean, I still think this is expensive.

And, as for books; against my scholarships and grants and shit, I'm actually going to have to take out a loan just so I can get my books - f**king stupid.

[Tung]

How much are you guys' tuitions this semester? =\

For the entire year, or Fall semester? Cuz Mine's $7600 for Fall quarter. Good thing Financial Aid cover SOME of it only.

[Joanne]

First semester, Tung.

My first semester of 4 courses is about $2300. My friends' are only about $2000. =\

[Insurmountable]

I'm not sure yet, my college starts in October.

But last time I had college classes my books were more than my actual tuition which was ridiculous.

I'm estimating around $3000 or more for my stuff, thank god for community college as well. I don't want to even think of money its going to cost me to go to the next college I have to go to.