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rubah
07-26-2009, 12:18 AM
I was talking to Momiji about his supa expensive textbooks, and remembered a site I heard about before I ever started college that would try to save you money on textbooks.

BIGWORDS.com | Buy Textbooks | Sell Textbooks | Used College Textbooks | New College Textbooks | Textbook Price Comparison | Cheap Textbooks | Cheapest Textbooks | Compare Textbook Prices | Textbook Buyback | Textbook Price Bot | New and Used Music | (http://www.bigwords.com/)

I have $500 to spend per semester on textbooks, so I've never been too concerned about the cost before, but now that I realize I have to pay tax on that $500, I'm a little less willing to pay it!

anyways, $495 from the union bookstore = $320 from bigwords.com, sooooooo. . . Just saying!

(stu tends to buy his online anyways, but I wish I could've remembered this site for him before now!)

Rye
07-26-2009, 12:25 AM
Text book buying sucks. Luckily, my parents buy them for me because they pay for anything education size without word or complaint. But even me, as an education and English student who doesn't need to buy big heavy expensive Biology and medical books, my textbook bills can add up over $500 dollars.

Madame Adequate
07-26-2009, 12:36 AM
I thought ours were expensive. :( I've got a shelf full of them (Selling them on after you're done is for LOSERS who don't really care about knowledge >:[) and I doubt it came to $500 total over three years.

Kirobaito
07-26-2009, 12:39 AM
I just bought mine for this semester, and it was 18 different books totalling $340 and over four thousand pages. Liberal arts = lots and lots of small books.

Bunny
07-26-2009, 12:46 AM
For my classes this summer, I spent about $200 on three books.

rubah
07-26-2009, 01:11 AM
OH btw, if you want to obtain regular books, try bookmooch (http://www.bookmooch.com/). Is much win, imo.

Rantz
07-26-2009, 01:11 AM
I thought ours were expensive. :( I've got a shelf full of them (Selling them on after you're done is for LOSERS who don't really care about knowledge >:[) and I doubt it came to $500 total over three years.

Yeah this. Go Europe.

Heath
07-26-2009, 01:16 AM
I'm a History and Politics student and my textbooks really don't set me back too much. I guess because textbooks usually only really offer an introduction and so I depend upon journal articles and specific chapters from books that mean there isn't usually a book that will be entirely useful for the whole course. I've had to buy course packs of photocopying from the departments for various courses, but otherwise the library is my friend. I probably spent about £100-130 on books last year, though I often bought books I didn't necessarily need and £50 of that came from book vouchers I got for doing some volunteer work.


(Selling them on after you're done is for LOSERS who don't really care about knowledge >:[)

qft

The Jamie Star Scenario
07-26-2009, 01:22 AM
Erm, I go to the library. It has loads of copies of nearly all core texts and you can withdraw them for a month at a time and just renew them online. I've had one book in my cupboard for half a year because I just keep renewing it online.

When I was doing my first course I think I bought one book (ANATOMY COULORING IN BOOK WOOO) and just did the rest in the library and on my current course I haven't bought one yet.

Shlup
07-26-2009, 01:35 AM
I used to buy my textbooks with financial aide, until the last year and a half of my college career where I stopped buying them at all and just kept the money. Still got straight A's somehow. *shrug*

rubah
07-26-2009, 01:46 AM
Erm, I go to the library. It has loads of copies of nearly all core texts and you can withdraw them for a month at a time and just renew them online. I've had one book in my cupboard for half a year because I just keep renewing it online.


The problem with that is that there might be 2 copies of the book and 30 people in your class!

Kawaii Ryûkishi
07-26-2009, 01:49 AM
I stopped buying them at all and just kept the money. Still got straight A's somehow. *shrug*

Amanda has it.

eestlinc
07-26-2009, 02:20 AM
law school books are ridiculous because they all cost over $100, and the majority of the contents are public domain judicial decisions that have been edited down and annotated. Plus they are long and the publishers use cheap binding so they tend to fall apart if you read and carry them to class each day. Such a scam.

Shauna
07-26-2009, 02:24 AM
I am so not looking forward to book buying next year. Textbooks for 12 different classes. Ugh. Although, I imagine many of them will use the same/similar textbooks, as it's all Biology. It may not be too bad. That and my boyfriend will be selling me some of his old ones, and my friend and I may share books since we're pretty much doing the exact same course. Yay. xP

Raistlin
07-26-2009, 06:14 AM
law school books are ridiculous because they all cost over $100, and the majority of the contents are public domain judicial decisions that have been edited down and annotated. Plus they are long and the publishers use cheap binding so they tend to fall apart if you read and carry them to class each day. Such a scam.

I recently bought my first law school books. :( I allotted $1000 for it, but I got away with a good bit less than that so I'm happy.

Burtsplurt
07-26-2009, 02:49 PM
I'd only buy a few basic books. The absolute necessities. Everything else you can get from the library (they'll probably have copies in the short loan section that can't be booked out for longer than an hour, so you'll be able to get hold of them).

As I got further into my course, I found I used journal articles for the vast majority of my reading. It might be different in courses that aren't science related, but journals are the bread and butter. Out of the 70 or so references in my dissertation, I don't think a single one was taken from a textbook.

Jess
07-26-2009, 05:04 PM
when I was at college, we paid a fee of like £50 to the college and then they supplied all the books we needed for the course.

I don't have to buy any anymore though as I'm done with college and working~ :jess: