<p>So, according to my school, the price for books per semester is $450 per semester, which seems ridiculous.</p>
<p>My schedule will look something like this:</p>
<p>[one writing intensive course]
Chemistry 1A
Calculus I
Spanish 333
Music Lessons (elective)</p>
<p>For the above mentioned, for which subjects would it be absolutely essential to get a book? So far, I can only think to get a Chem book. Oh, and Spanish for the exercises. For these books, where can I get them for the cheapest amount?</p>
<p>For Calculus, would I really need a book? Couldn't I just copy certain pages from the library? I took Calculus in the 11th grade, but I've forgotten most of it. But is it really worth spending money on the book if I'm organized enough to keep copies?</p>
<p>Don't do anything until you see what books are assigned. Then start looking at places like Amazon, ValoreBooks, Alibris, etc. If your school bookstore gives you the option of ordering online, they'll have the information you need about who has assigned what, so I would check it regularly in order to give yourself the most amount of time possible to find and order a copy.</p>
<p>I would buy them all, understanding that this is going to be an expensive semester, with plenty of books that were written to be textbooks. You may be able to get some from the library, but I wouldn't count on them being there every time you need them.</p>
<p>Whatever condition you buy them in, keep them as close to that condition as you can, so that you can ask for a price as close as possible to what you paid when you're ready to sell. (Since you're talking about not buying some, I assume you're planning to sell them. I tend to keep mine, though.)</p>
<p>The reason the price is so high is that the market for used textbooks is so busy. Most of the money that's going to the textbook companies is in the first couple of years that the book is out -- after that, most people are buying used books rather than new and the publisher doesn't see a cent of what they're paying -- so they have to charge a lot for them in order to recover their expenses and make some profit. If your school is saying that the average amount spent by students is $450 -- about $90 a class -- then I'd agree that that's ridiculous. If they're saying that the average price each student would pay if they bought their books new and for the official price is $450, that's not so bad. Especially if you're willing to deal with books that are in not-so-great condition. (I'd suggest trying to make sure your Spanish book doesn't have markings in it, though, because it's going to contain exercises you don't need a lot of scratch paper to work out and there's value in doing those exercises without having the answers written right there on the page.) You may occasionally be assigned a big textbook that has just come out, and even with places like Amazon you'll be spending a lot for it, but many of the books assigned to you are going to be available for a lot less. On the other hand, depending on your major, you may be reading a lot of books that weren't written as textbooks as you progress through school, and because there's going to be a market for new copies of those books for quite awhile and used copies are harder to get rid of, you may well be able to get copies of those books for very little money.</p>
<p>$450 is cheap. In engineering the books will total from $700 to $900 depending on new/used. Online I am sure they can be found for less (maybe $50 cheaper for new on Amazon, maybe $hundreds less on Ebay for used, etc).</p>
<p>I recommend you buy your books right now, about a month before school starts. I already have my books and got some new for half the price of used on my schools bookstore.</p>
<p>I did engineering and never except 1 semester when i took chemistry did my books cost more than $200 a semester. The time I took chem it was $280.</p>
<p>I have a question, I went online to my student account and they gave me a booklist. However, its really not a booklist at all there aren't any ISBNs or authors. It just gives me my course number and a name like "General Chemistry Lab Manual". The only thing it has is a link to order these books from the bookstore, how do I find these books on sites like amazon, ebay, etc.? I also haven't seen any contact information on my professors other than their names.</p>
<p>if you have friends who have taken those classes before, borrowing their stuff can save you a lot of money. if you don't then... hit the online used book store community.</p>
<p>If its a book that you'll only use for that one class and you aren't interested in it, try the college library; there is usually at least one copy, plus an interlibrary loan system. I probably saved $200 on text books by using the system savily.
Plus, hit up friends to borrow their books. This advice is worth squat if you like to defile your text book in any way, but I never did and probably saved a total of $500 in a year.</p>