<p>Should we be buying textbooks yet?</p>
<p>I'm interested in this too.</p>
<p>If you know what books you need, why not?</p>
<p>well, often people buy them online, then pick them up at the Berkeley student store. The problem with that is, there are a ton of students doing the same thing and you could be waiting in line for a long time. </p>
<p>You could go in a buy them once you get there, but again the lines will be long. Not to mention many popular courses will have their books on back-order so it will take longer.</p>
<p>Finally you can have your books shipped. There is obviously a shipping cost, but i find it worth it, so i don't have to waste time standing in line.</p>
<p>my friend told me not to get it before classes start...because sometimes the teacher could change the books?</p>
<p>I bought my books last week. Better early than late!</p>
<p>I've never had a problem with a teacher requesting something that wasn't already spelled out in the book store -- for example, these books are optional, or you'll only need to buy one of this set of books and we'll talk about that in class, or these books (and this edition) required. Because I've never had that problem, I often go into the bookstore shortly after they stock for the semester, copy down ISBNs, and shop online early enough that I have books in time for the first class.</p>
<p>Have yet to have a problem AND I avoid the student rush AND I save money.</p>
<p>i tend to buy my books a week or two into the semester. you never know if you're going to be dropping a class, so returning a book is never fun. often times the lines to return books are longer than the lines to buy them. also, you might have a class where a prof listed a ton of books but only uses 1-2 of them, there's really no need to buy the others. just some food for thought</p>
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my friend told me not to get it before classes start...because sometimes the teacher could change the books?
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<p>Nah, this pretty much never happens. You can buy them now or put them off until later...doesn't make much of a difference really. If you're thinking about dropping a class, or you're on a waitlist, might wanna wait to buy them.</p>
<p>Is there a place where I can buy books by charging them to my CARS account using my Cal 1 Card? Everybody else seems to be using credit cards, debit cards, or cash to buy their books, but I don't have enough money in these resources to pay for books.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, sometimes a professor might say "you don't really need to buy this book" so maybe waiting until class starts is a good idea.</p>
<p>I wouldn't recommend buying it from the store unless you really have to. abebooks.com, half.com, amazon.com, bigwords.com are all much cheaper, especialyl with international versions. The Library should have the books, provided you're not cramming around test times.</p>