All about Books..
Basic College Textbook Information
Hello all,
Receiving your textbooks in college works a little differently than it does in High School. Instead of going to your class and the teacher handing over a textbook to each student, you must rent/buy the textbooks on your own. I know that this may seem EXTREMELY stressful. Hopefully, by the end of this blog post you will have the information that you need to successfully obtain the textbooks for your classes, and realize that it is not as stressful as it may seem.
The first bit of useful information I am going to give you is to be aware of your options. You can order your books from the campus bookstore, or you may feel more comfortable ordering your books from an online textbook retailer. I will go into more information about the pros and cons of each of these options in my later blog posts, but I wanted to make you aware of your options ahead of time.
Secondly, you may not need the assigned textbook for your class. Now, you may be utterly confused by that statement, “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I need my textbook?” but, just hear me out. I have taken a number of courses with professors who, on the first day, have stated something along the lines of: “Students, we will not be using the assigned textbook for this course. Instead, it is there as a reference. If you don’t understand something I have said in the lectures, or if you want to do some deeper research into a subject matter that we have discussed in class, then you have a place to start your research.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t have an extra $200+ to spend on a book that I may or may not use. Especially considering that the campus library likely has a copy of the textbook on reserve that you could use if you needed the extra research. Therefore, my suggestion is that you wait to buy/rent textbooks until after the first day of classes. By holding out, you will have a chance to find out where your professor stands on the matter of textbooks. If they don’t address it in class, you can always go up to them after class ends to ask them about it; or you could just email them and ask. The use of textbooks in courses varies with each professor, so don’t forget to consider that when obtaining your textbooks. Also, most professors like for everyone in the class to have the textbook by the second week of the semester. Although, most of them are understandable if you don’t yet have your textbooks because the bookstore hasn’t gotten them in (which happens occasionally). With this one trick, you could save hundreds of dollars in textbooks each semester.
However, if you are someone who does not feel comfortable with this approach to obtaining your textbooks; if it makes you feel better to have all of your textbooks for each course weeks ahead of time, that’s okay. Do whatever method makes you feel the most comfortable. Just because this is the method I use and promote, it is not the only option. I’m only here to inform you on these aspects so that you can make a proper decision based on your preference.
This is it for the basic information for getting your textbooks for your courses. In the weeks to come, I will be informing you of all the information you will need to make a decision on whether you want to order from the campus bookstore or online textbook retailers, as well as the pros and cons for both.
Until next time,
Brandon Scott
