Textbooks. Hate them as much as I do?

[kyuuei]

I swear, if there's anything more inefficient than the textbooks of colleges please point me in it's direction. It needs immediate attention.

Mayhap this should be in the "complain about x" section, but I seriously spent $400 dollars on textbooks because they had ALL new editions and immediately removed the old editions from shelves (even though they honestly have the same content for the most part.).. My weight training teacher wasn't even AWARE of a new edition until we showed it to him.

I don't think teachers should rely on textbooks, or if they do, it should be a bare minimum. Using the examples below to back up my statement..

My kinesiology courses both required me to buy the textbooks, but they only have 3-4 minute take-home quizzes that account for a total of <10% of my grade. $50 dollars for 3 quizzes is a bit extreme.

On top of that, there's a BRAND new Bio1 textbook and they admit they may not buy it back even though you're forced to buy it brand new because they're not sure they want to keep this particular textbook past the semester. WHAT?!

So go ahead, vent your anger and tell me why college textbooks are as ridiculous as I know them to be.

 

[Little Linguist]

Yup. 500 bucks every semester drains from your pocket into someone else's.

Going to university is awesome though!

 

[The Decline]

I spent around $50 last semester. I just asked my professors if getting the previous edition was fine, and they all said sure. The books were no more than $15 each, used from online.

Even the newer editions I saw were ridiculously discounted online. Stop funding the bookstore scammers and instead support students selling their used books online

 

[Giggly]

Many a student walk away from the college bookstore buyback line with a frown because they're using a new edition the next term.

I spent around $50 last semester. I just asked my professors if getting the previous edition was fine, and they all said sure. The books were no more than $15 each, used from online.

Even the newer editions I saw were ridiculously discounted online. Stop funding the bookstore scammers and instead support students selling their used books online

any good links to share?

 

[Kyrielle]

I think they're okay. But then, I didn't have many core classes. I will admit that I did NOT like spending $60-$100 for one book that I wouldn't even read willingly. Many of these were art history texts, and though I could have sold them back, I decided to keep them simply because of the massive amount of useful information they contained.

Most of my other text books have been $20 each, which is a pretty standard price for most color-printed books in general. Quite a few of them I have sat down and willingly read just about front to back because they are interesting (read: not dry reading).

 

[The Decline]

Many a student walk away from the college bookstore buyback line with a frown because they're using a new edition the next term.



any good links to share?

half.com and amazon.com are the best

 

[Novascientia]

No, actually, I love text books.

New text books, old text books (I gots me one from 1908 on Logic and one from 1915 on Organic Chemistry).

Useful text books, pointless text books. Trust me, the pointless ones are more fun.

Read em' from cover to cover...but I never study the section that we're doing in class.

In fact, I think I shall compose an Ode to Textbooks someday. I'll write it in the margin of my Physics book. It shalt be epic.

Of course, I haven't had to pay for large amounts of text books yet...mayhap my opinion will change.

 

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Most college bookstores are essentially a monopoly operation and have contracts with the university to keep it that way. At the university I used to work at we had trouble with the university printing out enough study guides that were created by the Math department. However the Math department didn't have the authority to print the study guides themselves. By contract we had to wait for the bookstore to print them out and slap their markup on them.

 

[JocktheMotie]

The highest I spent on books for 1 semester was $750. Orgo alone was like $250 when you took buying the lab book, lab gear, study book, all that shit, most of it is superfluous. Just get the older editions, use half.com. I never used the bookstore again after that.

 

[nightning]

After a while... you learn which is the books that you MUST have, and which you can do without.

I think it's best not to buy any textbooks until a week or two into the course... so you figure out whether you actually need the book or not. Oh and forget about study guides and companion CDs etc... I found them to be absolutely useless.

 

[Asterion]

I've found all of my textbooks to be a useless waste of paper. I've started going back through my Calculus book, but I haven't made it past the diagnostics test yet, I've just procrastinated it, solving the occasional problem. I'd benefit most by buying the pages as I use them lol, what kind of person makes it all the way through a thousand pages of mathematics!?! Some books from other topics might be a little more digestible, but I don't want to buy another maths book until I get through the first one

add: Though they do say that they should be used as references to back up the lecture slides, still, it's pretty frustrating knowing that ~4000 pages of information is going to waste every year.

 

[The Decline]

I just got a $0.45 macro and micro organic chem procedure textbook this week from the thrift store. Woo!

 

[kyuuei]

I spent around $50 last semester. I just asked my professors if getting the previous edition was fine, and they all said sure. The books were no more than $15 each, used from online.

Even the newer editions I saw were ridiculously discounted online. Stop funding the bookstore scammers and instead support students selling their used books online

There's always one

Most college bookstores are essentially a monopoly operation and have contracts with the university to keep it that way. At the university I used to work at we had trouble with the university printing out enough study guides that were created by the Math department. However the Math department didn't have the authority to print the study guides themselves. By contract we had to wait for the bookstore to print them out and slap their markup on them.

We have lab manuals and stuff specifically designed for our college too.. So It's not like I can just go to any old manufactured bookstore for some of this stuff.

After a while... you learn which is the books that you MUST have, and which you can do without.

I think it's best not to buy any textbooks until a week or two into the course... so you figure out whether you actually need the book or not. Oh and forget about study guides and companion CDs etc... I found them to be absolutely useless.

Companion CDs are useless, and I never buy them, so wouldn't you know that this year in particular my Bio class is all "Yeah, I think I'll throw in some pop quizzes from the CD.." .. Wtf? I'm not spending money on the CD just so you can give me 2 small quizzes.

As far as waiting, I bought from the bookstore my first semester, it was gay, bought online, was satisfied.. but this year since there were new editions of everything I was waiting to get to class to see which editions I could get away with. Every teacher said "You need the edition we're using." and every teacher said "Do this homework out of the book for Thursday." So, unless I ship my textbooks next day air, this semester buying online wasn't an option really.

I just got a $0.45 macro and micro organic chem procedure textbook this week from the thrift store. Woo!

 

[paperoceans]

Buy them online... I only spent $19 on my textbooks this semester. Last spring I spent $25 on a $200 textbook that was BRAND NEW. I abebooks is good.

Also, there usually isn't a big difference between the newer editions and older ones (minus page differences). I know that professors usually request the newer ones, but they would never notice that you bought an older one unless you tell them. My psychology teacher wanted the 5th edition, but I bought the 4th one (published less than five years ago and was on sale for $5).

IT'S A TRAP.

 

[FDG]

Here in Italy most books are just photocopied, or downloaded from the Internet. In 4 years of college I spent at most 100 euros for all my textbooks (cumulated over the years). The professors, knowing that the editors are thieves, indirectly encourage this type of behavior. I've studied in Denmark, where everybody bought new textbooks every semester, and I thought they were crazy. We can't waste so many resources like that.
Even when there's something specific for a given class written by the professor, either the professor (obviously, not openly, but in his studio) gives free photocopies to the student of the book, or we buy it all togheter (classes are made of around 30 people, usually) and then make photocopies. If it's a really specific courses with less than 10 people, usually there's enough books in the university library and in the libraries of the universities of the nearby cities to cover all the students.
At the end of the day, we spend very little money on textbooks, but the system is different form the US (we have public college, we pay around 1000 euros a year). We also don't have any "generalist" classes, we decide our major from the start, thus waste less money with say, chemistry courses for a future economics major.

 

[RenaiReborn]

blah. I like textbooks, but I hate buying them.

They're the one thing my scholarship doesn't cover, and I have spent 650+ on books, nearly all used, and apparently am missing a lab book as well. I searched for the used ones online, and they were the same price as those in the bookstore (small private college thing). While the used books weren't too bad, the new books which I was required to purchase (yes required, as in if I didn't have them the first day my grade would go down and yes they had to be the new edition because the professors looked) ran over 100+ each. *dies*

I have no money, I have no job, and if I do get a job, then my study time will be cut and my scholarship money goes away as a result of poor grades. *sob*

 

[Usehername]

Buy them online... I only spent $19 on my textbooks this semester. Last spring I spent $25 on a $200 textbook that was BRAND NEW. I abebooks is good.

Also, there usually isn't a big difference between the newer editions and older ones (minus page differences). I know that professors usually request the newer ones, but they would never notice that you bought an older one unless you tell them. My psychology teacher wanted the 5th edition, but I bought the 4th one (published less than five years ago and was on sale for $5).

IT'S A TRAP.

I've had classmates flunk an exam because their older editions were missing something the prof thought was important that was included in the new edition. Though you have a point that this is often the case, it's not always the case.