Books

<p>When are we supposed to buy them?
I signed up for textbook reservation with the bookstore but i’m not sure if that’s the best thing to do…?</p>

<p>Honestly, buying from the boom store might be easy and convenient but its a rip off. I just got a like new math 118 textbook for 35 bucks on ebay, and its retails for 180 $. You’ll save a lot of money if you get em on ebay, amazon etc. Theres even some sites to rent them from.</p>

<p>I’ve been searching up the names of the textbooks that I need for my classes on PASS and some of them are shown up like this:</p>

<p>e.g., for chem 124, there are 2 required books. One of them is just a text book called CHEMISTRY by SILBERBERG and the other one is a bundle or a set called SET3-CHEMISTRY+ARIS ACCESS+SUPPL.PAGE by SILBERBERG.</p>

<p>Right now, I’m just trying to find the cheapest way possible of purchasing textbooks and I’m wandering if these bundles for some classes are necessary and if they are necessary, is there a way I can purchase them outside of the El Corral Bookstore? Also, some books don’t even show up on ebay or amazon so if someone can kindly give me some tips or websites where I can purchase these books then that would be much appreciated. </p>

<p>Oh and lastly, I managed to purchase the chemistry book by SILBERBERG but due to my failure in checking the description before purchasing, I bought the 4th edition and not the 5th edition which is the one that I’m supposed to buy. Luckily though, I’ve heard that the 4th edition and the 5th edition are quite similar so should I just stick with the 4th edition or do I really need the 5th edition?</p>

<p>how do you look at the required textbooks on pass?</p>

<p>You can also look up the textbooks assigned by going to the El Corral Book site and put in your classes. They will show you the books that you need to get and the prices for new and used. You can use that to compare to the other places you get books.</p>

<p>I thought there was a book icon on the PASS site after each class.</p>

<p>Where do you find/get the ISBN?</p>

<p>Get the ISBN from each professor or, failing that, from each dept. The book store doesn’t post it because they don’t want you comparing prices and buying elsewhere. It is crucial that you get it because textbooks often have different versions and packages each with a different ISBN. This is particularly true for science and math. Something else you might want to find out is if the prof actually uses the book in class. You’d be amazed how many don’t.</p>

<p>Login to the portal and the ISBN is next to the required books field in PASS.
Simple as that.</p>

<p>Is it just me, or do a lot of the classes do not have their required text listed / to be announced?</p>

<p>Almost most of my classes read: O REQ : 0 OPT.</p>

<p>wait so how do you see the books in pass?</p>

<p>What you’ll find is that often teachers won’t list their choices at all, or if they do, it’s a few days before class starts. Most of the time I wait until the first week to decide whether or not to order the book.</p>

<ol>
<li>Login to the Cal Poly Portal.(This is required, don’t just go to PASS as a guest via google) </li>
<li>click on PASS in the left hand corner on the main page.</li>
<li>Select your class(i.e. math 141) and find your section(i.e. 32). </li>
<li>In the right hand corner under the book tab it will says something like “2 REQ, 0 OPT”. </li>
<li>Click on that writing and the books and ISBN numbers will appear.</li>
</ol>