<p>Do I buy all of the books before class starts?</p>
<p>I would first ask around or research and see if the professor even use books. I’ve had several classes where the books were a waste of money because the prof does not use any part of it and it didn’t even help me in class. </p>
<p>I also usually wait until the first weeks to buy books just to make sure I don’t waste any money. From experience, a lot of my classes had about a week or two of grace period before we start using books.</p>
<p>If you are 100% sure the book is needed, I would buy it early so you can find cheaper costs online.</p>
<p>I would pretty much always wait until the first class to buy the textbook. That way you can be sure that you are going to take the class and that you are going to use the book. For most of my classes, the textbook was a reference and we weren’t actually going to be tested on it (in which case, I never used the textbook). Other times the textbook was only going to be used for homework problems or for reading a chapter. If the book was available elsewhere (library, friend, etc), I would just photocopy the section that I needed.</p>
<p>I still found cheap prices online for textbooks even at the beginning of the quarter, and I never had an issue buying the textbook after the course started. If you need the book at the very beginning of class you can always buy it from the bookstore, and then return it (just make sure you check the return policy for your bookstore!) after the first week.</p>
<p>Alternatively, you could ask the professor or older students if you need the textbook for the course and then buy it early. If you’re the type of student where you generally always use the textbook regardless, you can also buy it early before classes start.</p>
<p>I’m also an incoming freshman, but I bought everything I needed during the tax-free weekend. I’m an engineering major, so the school just signed me up for a bunch of classes, basically all required classes like English, math, intro to engineering, etc. I ended up signing up for really just one class which I didn’t really have a choice because other classes were pretty much all full.</p>
<p>But yeah, I already know that I can’t drop any of my courses, so it didn’t hurt to buy my textbooks early for me 
I only got like two or three textbooks too, most of the classes I just need to go online and stuff. So definitely do check if a textbook is required for a class.</p>
<p>And do not remove the shrink wrap before the classes start, just to make sure that the textbook that you have is what you need. That’s what they told me at my school bookstore… as long as the shrink wrap is still there, I can just return it.</p>
<p>But anyways, I would definitely get my textbooks before the classes start, just because there’s gonna be a bunch of people inside the bookstore the first week, and I just don’t like doing things at the last minute :p</p>
<p>Nah, I’ve bought too much stuff in the past that I have not used. I wait to see if I need certain books, and also to see if I can get the international edition, which is far cheaper (if hw is book based, I can’t really go with this option)</p>