It’s two weeks before your semester and you see a long ass list of books that amount to way over your budget. What do you do?
When it comes to college, some teachers just do too much. Like ma’am why are you assigning me 10 books, two of them anthologies, for a 15 week course? Several questions always just pop into my mind:
1. How are we going to read all of that information in such a short amount of time?
WE’RE NOT!
2. Were our pockets considered? Or our parents’ pockets?
THEY WEREN’T!
3. Are you okay?
NO, GET HELP!
It’s annoying to be a college student and have to decide what books to get versus what books shouldn’t be bought.
You’ll come across some teachers that only require one book or nothing at all, while others want three anthologies. Some schools, at least for mine, add the books on the bookstore website for each class. But, when you look at those, you’re primarily looking at it before the semester even starts and before the syllabus is posted for the course. And the syllabus can sometimes differ from the books put on the website.
This is one of the major issues that comes up when determining what books to buy because you really don’t know until you get to class. My suggestion is to get NO books until you start class, see the syllabus and meet the teacher. One exception would be if your teacher specifically tells you to buy a certain book prior to class. Definitely cop that so you’re not crucified first day of class.
After you get to class and hear what books the teacher requests, you can then make a decision. I always look at the calendar and what we’re reading each week. That can also determine which books are necessary and which can just be bought along the way.
I usually just buy the books along the way because a lot of times, the teachers always say I need books A, B, and C. Meanwhile, the class doesn’t even talk about or touch either one of those books. When this has been the case SO OFTEN, I ultimately refrain from buying books before I KNOW I’m going to need them.
Save yourself the frustration and just wait.
With the accessibility of textbooks online, it’s not a huge issue to buy them right before. Go to amazon too, because with prime, it’s so easy to get the material quickly. Also, don’t cave in without checking online. Sometimes there’s free PDF versions of whatever you need for class. If that’s the case, take advantage and save your money.
Reminder that this is just the way I usually go about buying stuff for class. I’ll be damned if again, I spend an arm and a leg for a bunch of books we DON'T read. It’s happened to me too many times for me to not learn my lesson, and I know I’m not alone in that struggle!