[Prince of Persia]

I'm an incoming college freshman who'll be majoring in Political Science on a pre-law track; my schedule for fall semester is all social sciences/humanities, thanks to having plenty of AP credit that gets me out of taking GEs. Given the insane prices for textbooks nowadays, I've been exploring the option of renting books, as there are some amazing deals on sites like Amazon (e.g., "Introduction to Global Politics" costs $50+ to purchase, but only $20 to rent). For someone who'll mostly be taking classes that are relevant to my future career and that has always been a visual learner who finds scribbling and highlighting all over textbooks to be useful for retaining information, would you guys still recommend renting books over purchasing them?

[Il Bersagliere]

I never bought books in college. I just downloaded onto my tablet and brought that to class. I coupled it with a great text annotation app. Saves a lot of cash in the long run, unless you really want or need a text copy.

[lex the impaler]

If they're worthy textbooks in your field, buy used editions. Perhaps an edition or two older. Copy problems sets from kids who bought legit books. Or you can also buy the international ones. That's what I did.

[Irenicus]

None of the above.


I did it this way, OP (in my Uni, we had to purchase e books from US publishers, for 30$ each. I majored in a similar field - Intl. Law).


I hate that education mafia, so me, and my friends did the following.

One of the crew would buy an ebook (each one would cover like 5$). He would of course, get instant access to all the chapters, tests, case studies etc.

Then...we would take pictures with a decent resolution camera (any good smartphone will do) of every relevant page, and compile all the pictures into an album.


There you go. Why pay hundreds of dollars, when you can 20$?

It is more productive to spend them elsewhere!

[Vienna]

I bought books the first semester of college.

Then I realized most course books, or very similar ones, were available in the library.

My tips would be to make it a routine to go study in the library everyday.

Get a pair of noise-cancelling headphones.

Get there when they open, you'll have dibs on books.

Find a quiet spot and get studying. Get in your study flow with the headphones, either through quiet music if that's your thing, or complete silence. There's nothing else for you to do in the library but studying, which is good. Put your phone in airplane mode. (Studying at home puts you at great risk for procrastination, at least it was so for me.)

Concerning your method of visual learning, well... Who's gonna know it was you highlighting in the library books? I think highlighting is ok, scribbling notes not so.

[realologist]

(08-13-2016 09:44 AM)DarianFrey Wrote:  

I bought books the first semester of college.

Then I realized most course books, or very similar ones, were available in the library.

My tips would be to make it a routine to go study in the library everyday.

Get a pair of noise-cancelling headphones.

Get there when they open, you'll have dibs on books.

Find a quiet spot and get studying. Get in your study flow with the headphones, either through quiet music if that's your thing, or complete silence. There's nothing else for you to do in the library but studying, which is good. Put your phone in airplane mode. (Studying at home puts you at great risk for procrastination, at least it was so for me.)

Concerning your method of visual learning, well... Who's gonna know it was you highlighting in the library books? I think highlighting is ok, scribbling notes not so.

I 2nd this. The library at my school would have 2 or 3 editions back of the exact same book. All I would do is check it out all semester and return it at the end.

Or you can bang an athlete in one of your classes. They get all their books for free so you can just look at one of their books.

I maybe had to buy 5 books my entire college career.

[storm]

You can try to save money:

1. Pirate the ebook (free)
2. Print it out ($15 or less)
3. Bind it into a book at Fed Ex ($10)

[komatiite]

Should check out this thread and this post in particular by the Forum's own Hannibal, he competes with the top Somali Pirates with his Textbook Pirating skills. He also is Putting People To Work by outsourcing his textbook search to Fiverr, I would argue that Hannibal has done more for American employment than Obama has done in eight years of Make Work Projects!
thread-57544...pid1370556

Don't sweat textbooks too much though, I can 99% guarantee that every prof will test you more on shit from class than from the book (unless they wrote the book). So don't skip too many classes.

Good luck young grasshopper!

[The Beast1]

abebooks.com

Buy all of your books from that site. Use international editions when possible.

I never spent more than 200$ a semester on books.

[National Crusader]

Don't buy college textbooks. You're only giving importance to dipshit socialist professors. Make copies from you friends who will buy them anyways.

[NewDayNewFace]

In college my first semester I bought textbooks full price at the bookstore. Big scam. The next semester I just bought the older versions off Amazon. A brand new book may cost 150$+ plus but the last version will just cost less then 5$. I did this all throughout school and saved a ton of money. Crazy thing about it was these older versions of books were practically the same exact thing verbatim.

[username]

(08-15-2016 01:24 PM)NewDayNewFace Wrote:  

Crazy thing about it was these older versions of books were practically the same exact thing verbatim.

They are. Those publishing assholes just reorder a few pages, change a few questions and answers, and then slap "New Edition" on it. Most professors are wined and dined by these publishers to force the students to buy the latest edition. Students are some of the most fucked over and no one stands up for them. Fees, student loans, outrageous tuition inflation, text book shit, etc.

One class I was able to buy the "international" version of the book. Everything was the same except it said, "sale prohibited in the United States." Fuck that. I bought it online for like $20.

I hope one day a Wikipedia for text books starts. Imagine the billions saved by students.