Angela’s Blog

Well, it’s just about two days until classes for the spring semester start up! Tomorrow, winter break is officially over and most students will be heading back–which means Storrs is coming back to life again! I’m very excited for the start of the new semester, because it not only means being able to see most of my friends again, but (call me a dork) I love the feeling of entering a new class, meeting new people and learning something refreshing and interesting. I’ve been taking breaks from MCAT studying recently by hitting up the UConn Co-Op bookstore and buying new supplies (binders, notebook paper, pens, etc.) as well as picking up my textbooks for my new classes.
 
When it comes to saving money, buying textbooks for college is an art. Textbooks will always be expensive and knowing the ways to save money on them (especially nowadays) is a skill that you should definitely have down. As a science major, you’ll typically have at least one hefty textbook per class (I’m talking about 600+ pages here folks!) and one textbook can end up costing hundreds of dollars. Last semester, I decided to pursue an English major in addition to Biological Sciences. While this meant taking a lot of new interesting classes, it also doubled the number of textbooks I get each semester!

When I first came to UConn, I bought all of my textbooks from the campus bookstore, and most of them at the ‘new’ full-cover price. Yeah, sounds kind of stupid, right? The UConn Co-Op is very convenient because it has all of the required textbooks for your classes right at hand, but if you’re willing to put a little effort into book buying, you’ll find that you’ll save a lot of money. Here are some of my budget-conscience tips to help you out:

1) Plan ahead!
A few weeks before the semester starts, e-mail your professor asking for a syllabus and required texts. Make sure to ask for the author(s)’s name, the publisher and what edition your professor will be using. Ask whether it’s necessary to have the exact copy that they have listed. For some classes (i.e. English), sometimes professors will be lax about the edition or publisher of the texts that they will use (for example, most poetry you ‘ll be able to find online to print for free!).

2) Check out venues other than your college bookstore.
Campus stores will usually offer books either ‘new’ (full-cover price) or ‘used’ (a certain percentage off; UConn is 25% off cover price). However, if you order online, you’ll be able to find great condition used books at drastically reduced prices. Always use a website that’ll compare prices on different vendor sites (I use http://www.textbooks.com/). Also, consider buying textbooks from other students. Facebook can be a great resource for this! *hint* *hint*

3) Your college library is a hidden gem.
Most literature classes will use novels that you can find right at your campus library! This is especially applicable if your professor doesn’t care about the edition of the texts you get. One benefit of knowing your required texts early is so you can hit up your library and take out all those books before anyone else does

4) ‘Used’ doesn’t necessarily translate to ‘gross,’ ’scribbled-over,’ ‘awful’, et cetera.
Be smart when shopping online, and make sure that you fully understand what a vendor means when they describe a textbook as ‘used’. Most used books I’ve purchased will be a little dog-eared, but who needs a shiny brand-new cover for their textbooks if it means saving a whole lot of $$$? 

These books were all bought used! They look great, dont they??

So how much did I save this year? Well, let me put it this way. When I first came to UConn, I would spend on average $800-$900 dollars on textbooks. Today, I spent a grand total of $182.86 on thirteen books! This is including one hefty Biochemistry textbook (bought used) and a 2000+ page anthology on British literature (also bought used). Most of my savings came from getting five of those books from the library and from buying two other books from a friend. Amazing, right?

As an added bonus, the Co-Op’s been giving out these awesome three-subject notebooks out to students for free! I made sure to grab one and tell everyone I knew to get one before they’re out. I mean, it doesn’t necessarily make up for all the money spent on textbooks this semester, but you can never go wrong with free stuff!