<p>Hello!</p>
<p>I'm heading to college this September and have heard from some of my older friends that you really don't have to buy the textbooks at all to do well in a lot of classes (one graduated from HolyCross and said that he didn't need 80% of the books he bought!). My parents are diseased and I'll be working every semester to pay for my schooling, so I really need to save every penny I can. I would be very grateful if everyone could share their experience on this one, and also help each other out:</p>
<p>1) What percentage of books you bought that you didn't use or didn't really need?
2) If you didn't buy one, what channels did you use to find out that you didn't need it (e.g. any websites or forums you can recommend)?</p>
<p>Thanks and appreciate your help!!</p>
<p>I think it is highly unlikely that you wont need textbooks.</p>
<p>Textbooks isn’t one of those things you should save money on. But do try to purchase online if possible.</p>
<p>Go go gigapedia.com (someone stole the .org domain name). You have to sign up, but it is free. They have a large number of textbooks available for download there.</p>
<p>Other than that, if they don’t have it there I recommend borrowing from a friend, or from the library (frequently they are available there). </p>
<p>The only books I have bought were lab books (we had to have them in the lab), and a $30 coursepack of old tests, which was worth the $30 since I used it all the time. This is out of 17 courses (including labs) which had a book (or books) “required.”</p>
<p>There’s a couple issues here</p>
<p>1) Homework is often assigned from problems in the textbook…if you don’t have the textbook you’d have to find a friend to get the information from
2) Quizzes and tests are often on material found in the textbook that might have been brushed over in class…I’m mainly talking about how to do a problem in math for example, etc. You can find this information online but you still might miss some questions here or there.</p>
<p>Here’s another thing…you can buy textbooks used fairly cheaply, and sell them back to your school, amazon.com textbook buyback, ebay, etc. I generally buy my textbooks new, and sell them back and the net cost to me is less than 50 a book. Getting them used will knock this down to say $25 a book. 4-5 classes a semester x 2 semesters a year is only $250.</p>
<p>For $250 a year I think you can manage. Many colleges are also introducing or have a rent a textbook program where you rent the book for the semester. Also, in many cases older editions of the textbook are fine and are even cheaper. </p>
<p>I’ve had some classes where I didn’t open the textbook once the entire semester because it was useless. Yes, it sucks to have wasted the money but this is the exception.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your comments! Especially to Marcdvl, very helpful!! :)</p>
<p>You should find out what the interlibrary loan policies are at your school. For my undergrad we got the book for the entire semester, so I’d try to get the book on an interlibrary loan and there weren’t any recalls, unlike if you take it out from the school’s library.</p>
<p>Honestly, it really depends on your classes and previous knowledge of the subject. There are some classes I’ve taken that I barely opened the book.</p>
<p>Other classes I’ve read the book cover to cover.</p>
<p>If you want to get really good grades and desire to study a lot then get the books. If you just want to get by with C’s in most of your subjects, you probably don’t need the books. Books only help you if you study outside of class. Many students get by with barely studying outside of class, they just go to class and take good notes. Many professors only test what they’ve taught in class - you can get by w/out a book in those classes as long as you go to class. Other professors test on everything in the book. You’re going to need the book for those classes.</p>
<p>In my experience: for math, science and engineering courses, you’ll probably need the textbooks. </p>
<p>For humanity classes, you won’t need all the textbooks (not to be confused for not needing any).
In my humanity courses, what usually happens is professors will tell you to buy a bunch of books that are never used, referenced or needed. But the professor added it because they think it’s a good (unneeded) supplement. </p>
<p>For those classes, I buy books after attending the first few classes. Usually by then, I can guage what are going to be used and what are just fluff.</p>
<p>It depends on the class.</p>
<p>For my history classes, the textbook (and really all of the other assigned books) were pretty pointless.</p>
<p>For my anatomy&physiology class, the book was critical.</p>
<p>depends on the class, and if you buy used you save alot of money.</p>