books for college

[crispygoat]

I'm currently studying in Advertising. Sure everyone heard books were expensive, but for !@#$ sakes ! I have an english course, where we have to buy a dictionary. So I thought, okay I'll just use the dictionary.com or whatever the dictionary widget on my mac. Well of course not, he wants the definition from a specific dictionary or else it's a zero mark. Okay whatever, I go to the book store... 200$ !! TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR A DICTIONARY !!! aghhhh he's crazy. Wal Mart better have it

[Armueller2001]

Book that was $128 at the bookstore... shipped for $70 to my house.

www.half.com is your friend

[StanFan]

Originally Posted by crispygoat

I'm currently studying in Advertising. Sure everyone heard books were expensive, but for !@#$ sakes ! I have an english course, where we have to buy a dictionary. So I thought, okay I'll just use the dictionary.com or whatever the dictionary widget on my mac. Well of course not, he wants the definition from a specific dictionary or else it's a zero mark. Okay whatever, I go to the book store... 200$ !! TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR A DICTIONARY !!! aghhhh he's crazy. Wal Mart better have it

That's Oshawa for you.
Did Webster himself sign it?

I assume you're going to Durham College. I graduated from the Electronics Engineering Technology program in 2007, and now I'm up in Lakehead trying to turn that college diploma into a university degree. Best of luck to you.

[Mark Wilson]

What school are you at?
I didn't know Oshawa has anything.

[StanFan]

Originally Posted by Mark Wilson

What school are you at?
I didn't know Oshawa has anything.

Must be either Durham College, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, or Trent @ Durham. I've attended the first two (Lived in Oshawa for 21 years) and can say lots great about Durham, UOIT not so much.

[Scarlet Fire]

Tell me about it. I just spent $700 for one semester's worth of books.

[StanFan]

Originally Posted by Scarlet Fire

Tell me about it. I just spent $700 for one semester's worth of books.

My semester total: $819.10

Sharing with friends is where it's at.

One of my 6 classes spans the fall and winter semesters though.

[crispygoat]

I'm attending Durham College, although I did apply at UOIT for Network Engineering, which is my back up if I don't like advertising. Why didn't you like UOIT ?

[Tsal]

Check out the past editions on Amazon etc. used's section. Usually the textbooks don't change that much over a single edition.

[oldrookie]

half.com

[StanFan]

Originally Posted by crispygoat

I'm attending Durham College, although I did apply at UOIT for Network Engineering, which is my back up if I don't like advertising. Why didn't you like UOIT ?

It's a combination of things. First, I thought their mandatory laptop learning policy would be a pretty cool thing (I did own a crummy computer at the time), but it was essentially a $1500 paperweight. When they were recruiting students (it was actually their first year open when I was there), they advertised the laptop feature as somewhat of a replacement for textbooks. By the end of my time at the school I was down for at least $1200 in textbooks and I wasn't even taking a full course load in the second semester.

My experience as a student there left a sour taste in my mouth. I feel the school opened a year or two early simply to cash in on the double cohort (In Ontario they eliminated grade 13 and had twice as many students graduate high school that year).

Another reason I dislike the school is in their relations with Durham College. The profs at UOIT, at least from what I was told by a few of my Durham teachers, don't even give the college instructors the time of day with regards to answering questions that current college students have about joining the university. Some other Durham students, three of which I am currently living and studying with, showed interest in getting their university degrees at UOIT so they could still live at home. They wanted to know if any sort of "transition program" was available to college graduates so that they could be placed in the second or third year of an engineering program based on their college credits. They were told that they had to start in year one and had no transferable credits from their college experience. They have such transfer programs available for business and a few other programs, why not engineering? We then figured we'd be better off moving to Thunder Bay and saving 2 years of school than to deal with them. It kind of defeats the purpose of Durham/UOIT sharing a campus if they insist on having such poor relations.

My industrial controls/automation teacher at Durham had to deal with profs and representatives of UOIT alot. He was the one who had to make all the requests to the government for the funding to build and finance the robotics lab in Durham. A team of technicians and himself designed the lab from the bottom up. Yet often UOIT (and occasionally General Motors) are erroneously given credit for the robotics lab, and neither camp denies it. On top of that, UOIT representatives often give tours of the lab to prospective engineering students telling them that they will be working in there. The only scheduled labs in that room are for Durham College students, and it is always full of students, even in the evenings and weekends when big projects are assigned. (Off topic: my brother and I designed a program for a robot to draw a customized guitar for our project, but that's not important) UOIT has pressured for the robotics lab to be used by UOIT students (potentially exclusively by UOIT students), but he's worked so hard for the lab to be used by his students (Electrical, Mechanical, Mechtronics, Biomedical technology students) and feels that there aren't enough resources to go around (or give up completely).

That's some of my beef with UOIT, and I hope they clear up some of these issues. Also I hope they got some more student-friendly professors. Some of the ones I had had egos too big for campus and were total (expletive of your choice). In 4 years since I haven't seen professors I hated more.

[::::BASSIST::::]

When I was in university the university bookstore had a 2 week return policy. So I'd buy the book, bring it to a copy place that did it for .05 a copy. Then I'd go get my money back. A large text usually cost about $10 photocopy. Unethical? Perhaps, but it saved me hundreds if not thousands. Another thing you can do, if your bookstore has a tight refund policy is find others in your class who need the same book and share/photocopy it. Some books can run up to $300. Thats pretty steep.

[StanFan]

Originally Posted by ::::BASSIST::::

When I was in university the university bookstore had a 2 week return policy. So I'd buy the book, bring it to a copy place that did it for .05 a copy. Then I'd go get my money back. A large text usually cost about $10 photocopy. Unethical? Perhaps, but it saved me hundreds if not thousands. Another thing you can do, if your bookstore has a tight refund policy is find others in your class who need the same book and share/photocopy it. Some books can run up to $300. Thats pretty steep.

You're the reason some textbooks come shrink-wrapped.

Prices are ridiculous so I don't blame you.

[Deluge Of Sound]

Ha! I only paid about $130 for books this semester.


Yes, I'm a terrible, terrible human being.

[Fassa Albrecht]

You're lucky. We're required to buy ALL the necessary texts. Here is the list for this year

Horaces Odes (Books 1,2 and 3)- David West (£90)
Sophocles' Electra and Other Works (£10)
Jean Anouilh, Antigone (£10)
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (£25)
Plutarch's Lives, Penguin Edition (£10)
Virgil's Aeneid, Hort edition (£30)
Cassells Latin Dictionary (£35)
Liddell and Scott Greek Lexicon (£25)
The Interllectual Revolution, JACT (£20)

Total- £230 (roughly $500 or so dollars).

Annoylingly some of these books are print-on-demand so they're not printed until someone orders them, and there's a minimum order as well so you can wait weeks for a book.
Also the uni bookshop only keeps in a certain number of books and so if the class is large it's a case of who can get the money and go to the shop first.

[will.i.am]

Originally Posted by Armueller2001

www.half.com is your friend

oh please explain this... http://product.half.ebay.com/Fundame...66780QQtgZinfo

are people selling this for 20$???????????????????????????????????????????? im sorry, i'm in shock... i bought that book for 166$

up to date i spent 700$ and im missing a few more books.

edit: i bought the 3rd edition, which is the one im supposed to but that one is the 6th?? what's going on =(
edit: oh it's older (for americans) but dang, the new ones are about half what i payed still

[Vorago]

Originally Posted by Fassa Albrecht

You're lucky. We're required to buy ALL the necessary texts. Here is the list for this year

Horaces Odes (Books 1,2 and 3)- David West (£90)
Sophocles' Electra and Other Works (£10)
Jean Anouilh, Antigone (£10)
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (£25)
Plutarch's Lives, Penguin Edition (£10)
Virgil's Aeneid, Hort edition (£30)
Cassells Latin Dictionary (£35)
Liddell and Scott Greek Lexicon (£25)
The Interllectual Revolution, JACT (£20)

Total- £230 (roughly $500 or so dollars).

Annoylingly some of these books are print-on-demand so they're not printed until someone orders them, and there's a minimum order as well so you can wait weeks for a book.
Also the uni bookshop only keeps in a certain number of books and so if the class is large it's a case of who can get the money and go to the shop first.

What are you studying?


Buying books is a ***** but I never paid as much as you guys do. Some of these prices are a complete and utter rip off!

Now getting my relatively cheap books was always a quest that took at least a month...

[BurningSkies]

First off, I work at a bookstore, and the store isn't your problem. Its the publisher, and your professor (or professors).

I KNOW how much books cost, and I know that really there's no markup in selling them. The publishers are cutting their own throats, and the professors are helping them. The professors are wined and dined by reps and 'sold' into buying unnecessary packages, 'updated' editions, etc. You'd be surprised how many faculty members don't even check into pricing.

Lots of professors wait until just before class before placing their orders...guess what? All the used books are gone by then. We can't buy them back from last year's students, and all the used vendors are out already. Your professor has screwed you, and only because he's been lazy and wouldn't take 5 minutes to fill out a form back in March...and waited until august to do it. We LOVE used books. Cheaper for students, which makes them happier, and the markup is at least a bit better than new...AND students get more for selling them back if we have an order! Lots of times when that last minute order comes in, the professor is using the SAME book they did for the past 3 years! They KNEW that back in March!

Now, my main job is copyright work. Anyone who is copying full books is doing something more than unethical. It's illegal. You're stealing.

Here's what you do. COMPLAIN TO YOUR PROFESSOR AND TO THE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION. They're the ones who decide on your school's policy. They're the ones who pick the publishers, books, packages and make the deals for all those stupid extra CDs, web-tutorials, unused study guides and other crap. They're the ones who pick new editions. They're the ones that haven't figured out that the big publishers (McGraw Hill, Pearson, Cengage/Thomson, who own most of the publishers) will do "custom" editions that only include the parts of the book you need, not the unused chapters...and they're cheaper! In some cases, they'll even sell unbound books that you can put in a binder. It saves YOU money.

[Brad Barker]

two cheaper options than the campus bookstore:

1) half.ebay.com.

2) the library.

[blizzard]

The best way to save money is to A) Not buy the book at all, I have gotten through many subjects without the text book either using lecture notes only or hiring the book out from the library. B) Buy secondhand, the few books I've bought I have saved around $50+ on by buying older version second hand. Most of the time there is no difference between versions of books.