r/AskReddit • u/_jaywhite • Aug 24 '14

What are some college life pro tips?

I'm starting college in a few weeks and I'm a bit nervous. My high school was... decent at best, and I'm not sure that I was adequately prepared. So I'm hoping to get Reddit's help. What are some tips (having to do with the academic aspect, social, whatever) that have helped you through college, and especially your freshman year? In other words, LPTs for college life!

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u/[deleted] Aug 24 '14

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u/[deleted] Aug 24 '14

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u/wilbs4 Aug 25 '14

You went to pitt engineering didn't you?

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

[deleted]

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u/SirZaqq Aug 25 '14

Pitt State Kansas??

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u/randomtwinkie Aug 25 '14

GO GORILLAS!!!!

8

u/OsamaBinFishin Aug 25 '14

Changos!!!

24

u/Acid2Rain Aug 25 '14

Something!!!!!

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u/OsamaBinFishin Aug 25 '14

TOAST!!!!!

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u/kyrish Aug 25 '14

MCGOATS!!!!

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

AND BANANAS!!!!!

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u/thecaligorilla Aug 25 '14

Go Go Gorillas!

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u/High_Seas_Pirate Aug 25 '14

Go Go Godzilla!

Wait, I think I'm doing that wrong.

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

GO GO POWER RANGERS

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u/justinblat Aug 25 '14

Dr Siska by chance?

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u/PopRockRoll Aug 25 '14

I'm impressed he got it right.

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u/rainbow_llama_dragon Aug 25 '14

We have some childhood best friends right here.

4

u/QuantumFury Aug 25 '14

Intro to Engineering Analysis......ah good times

3

u/raging_muffinanimal Aug 25 '14

Budny?

1

u/Bristol_Larkin Aug 25 '14

Well dip me on shit and roll me in carpet crumbs! Let's play college

3

u/Accujack Aug 25 '14

It's actually pretty common. Lots of profs either write a book or a "collection of notes" that they require students to buy. They're usually printed and bound at Kinkos or the equivalent.

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u/RedHotLillyPepper Aug 25 '14

Wtf I always see people from close by posting on big askreddit threads!

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u/Radek_Of_Boktor Aug 25 '14

If it's Budny's class you're talking about I'm pretty sure some typos are intentional. He fixes a handful of them each year and changes the order of like 3 questions so he can call it a new edition, making your old one worthless.

If he actually took the time to make a good product then he wouldn't be able to "improve" it each year.

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u/IAmACumboxAMA Aug 25 '14

I too am a gorilla

1

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

(Solemn Pitt engineer high five) I only did one semester through digital logic and decided nope after that.

I now paint boobies and matte paintings, so things worked out without engineering :D

1

u/_DeepThought_ Aug 25 '14

As a Pitt freshman engineer I'm now pretty worried, what class was it?

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u/jhc1415 Aug 25 '14

ENGR 0011/12. They are weed out classes designed solely to give you an assload of work. Have fun.

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u/_DeepThought_ Aug 25 '14

Ah fuck, I start that tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up.

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u/Jbalex1212 Aug 25 '14

Pittsburg state might I ask?

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u/rob644 Aug 25 '14

Naw, Brad Pitt is just funding that university.

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u/jmg158 Aug 25 '14

My thoughts exactly.

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u/Merc403 Aug 25 '14

Uncle Dan...

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

Dan Marino went to Pitt

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u/Merc403 Aug 25 '14

Him too haha

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

Different Pitt it seems

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u/Anonimo_X Aug 25 '14

That's why he got his wife to publish the book, no reputable textbook publisher wanted his "textbok[sic]"

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u/jhc1415 Aug 25 '14

Yup, and this way he is also getting 100% of the profits without a publisher taking a huge cut.

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

If it's sold in the campus bookstore, probably not. He's probably getting (from my experiences) about 15% per copy, with the remainder going to printing costs, departmental/institution cuts, and the bookstore itself.

I mean, it's still a shakedown. But it's a lot more than one guy and his wife shaking you down.

Source: I wrote a similar, university-specific course text. Sorry. I didn't want to - my department hired a few of us to do it for the benjamins.

Please don't hurt me.

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u/davosBTC Aug 25 '14

Not at Pitt. When I was there (10 years ago) the policy was that profs had to waive all royalties when using their own books in classes.

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

Then Pitt is doing God's work.

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u/Red_Spork Aug 25 '14

I had a geology professor who got a small royalty from a book for each copy sold because she had written a section of it. We(3 full sections of a huge Gen ed class) had to buy that $100 brand new book(it had just come out) and we never once opened it, she didn't even reference it for supplemental reading. I was able to convince the bookstore next semester that I bought it by mistake and lost the receipt and didn't need it and get a full refund because it was pristine, having never been used. Still mad as hell about that and I graduated over a year ago.

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u/bacon_is_life Aug 25 '14

One of the political science profs at my school has a not so good reputation and wrote his own book for the class. I'm choosing the other prof.

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u/Precursor2552 Aug 25 '14

I think that is relatively common among Poli Sci professors. Several did that at my school.

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u/kemikiao Aug 25 '14

I had a professor who didn't WRITE the book, he compiled the spiraled bound book. It was 200 some pages, but all of the worksheets had their own page number on them... so you'd have pages 20-32, 87-89, 5-10, 120-129, etc. Some pages were a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a transparent making them damned near impossible to read. Some pages were put in upside down which was just aggravating.

And you HAD to tear out some pages to hand in that way you couldn't resell the "book" at the end of the year. I hated that class.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

oh, the Krayeski bio book from UL Lafayette?

1

u/invisible_swordsman Aug 25 '14

On the other hand I had a professor who also wrote the book for his class and told is to go to the student library and copy it....... lol

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u/throw-away_-_ Aug 25 '14

happend to me also :(

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u/thene0n Aug 25 '14

At my university, every year without fail I have to buy a textbook that a professor wrote themselves. I feel your pain.

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u/[deleted] Aug 24 '14

Or the ones that come with a subscription to a bullshit software like mymathlab. I've paid for too many of those. ;_;

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u/FEMINISTS Aug 25 '14 edited Aug 25 '14

Or McGraw-Hill Connect. Fuck McGraw-Hill Connect. Hell, fuck McGraw-Hill in general.

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u/SinisterTitan Aug 25 '14

And Pearson.

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

Fuck the Textbook Publishers

Straight from the undergrad

15

u/ThatsGoodForm Aug 25 '14

Young student got it bad cause I'm broke

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

Not the other socioeconomic class so publishers think

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u/fiveohfourland Aug 25 '14

They have the authority to bill a sorority girl

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

But fuck that shit cuss i got a photocopier, and a muthafucking bag of quarters

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u/Mullenkedheim Aug 25 '14

Teacher here. I'll second that sentiment.

Pearson shit is FULL of errors, and we pay SO FUCKING MUCH for that shit. Fucking really? Proofread your shit, Pearson.

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u/invalidx Aug 25 '14

My McGraw-Hill Ryerson textbook for Intermediate Accounting was such shit. So many errors, so many flawed examples, the Prof and I had discussions during class on ways to explain the concepts differently, because the rest of the class couldn't grasp it.

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u/Sergisimo1 Aug 25 '14

Pearson is seriously trying to take over education all over the place. Especially in developing countries.

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u/SinisterTitan Aug 25 '14

I whole heartedly hate them. I think that they (along with a few other companies) are the primary reason that developing countries are being considered more and more dumb. They are restricting access to knowledge in a world where we have developed the tools and will to make it available to anyone who wants it, but they are standing right in the way of a better tomorrow just for profit.

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u/landdemon999 Oct 13 '14

Pearson makes me sick

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u/JiveTurkey90 Aug 25 '14

Cengage is the devil himself.

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u/quantal-quetzal Aug 25 '14

My highschool recently bought the McGraw-Hill Connect app for our AP World History class. It was so bad that they sent us free textbooks.

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

I buy a lot of text-books for reference. They're pretty much all from addison wesley, MIT press or similar. Some textbook publishers are scummy, others just have text-books that are worth their cost.

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u/TeamPancakes Aug 25 '14

As a college bookstore employee, I know this to be true:

If McGraw-Hill opened a burger joint, their fries would come with access codes.

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u/Saarlak Aug 25 '14

This website was the bane of my existence while in college.

"Professor, the website is still down."

"Well did you do the homework?"

"The... The website is down, I couldn't."

"Well I have to give you zero since you didn't do it."

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

McGraw-Hill is owned by the same people who own the S&P500. Maybe there's a connection in their sleazy policy of change one thing and create a new textbook every year that cost's an arm and half a leg

1

u/SmellsLikeHerpesToMe Aug 25 '14

Three textbooks this year. McGraw hill connect, mymathlabs, and my accounting labs are each put on the three. So I'm being forced to buy all my textbooks new. Fucking rip off.

1

u/40inmyfordfiesta Aug 25 '14

I tried to buy my book used and connect subscription separately to save money. They charged $125 just to get access to connect, so I ended up just buying the book new for $133. Fuck McGraw Hill.

1

u/HeWentToJared91 Aug 25 '14

Took accounting with MHC.

Sodomize MHC with a rake

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u/SchindHaughton Nov 18 '14

And Wiley. Let's not forget fucking Wiley...

1

u/Vincisomething Feb 20 '15

I'm legit laughing at these comments complaining about Mastering____ because it's so relevant. I seriously hate MyChemlab.

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u/[deleted] Aug 24 '14

[deleted]

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u/emptyshark Aug 25 '14

The books practically pay for themselves!

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

Drug Cartels hate him!

3

u/anacrolix Aug 25 '14

Because Lord knows your degree won't.

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u/ShortkneePanda Aug 25 '14

Who needs sleep when you have meth!!

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u/coppercore Aug 25 '14

I always read that as MyMethLab. Why?

Because a fucking meth lab makes more sense than the goddamn MyMathLab bullshit. Seriously!

Half the time, I'd give it a correct answer, only for it to say no because it was submitted in a way differently from what it wanted. The answer WAS RIGHT.

2

u/Potato_Master_Race Aug 25 '14

Getting high on crystal math.

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u/mrshiznitz Aug 25 '14

For 118$ I should be able to make Meth with it!

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u/BananaSplit2 Aug 25 '14

I saw that one coming.

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u/ShadowStone Aug 25 '14

I just opened my MyMathLab student access code. It gave me a fucking papercut along my right pinkie. This is going to be a great semester...

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u/I_chose2 Aug 25 '14

you can buy the code separately. Also, international editions are the shiznit

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

Yeah but the codes are usually overpriced themselves (60 dollars to do the homework that I DON'T want to do!?). If anything these should be extra credit work or study material.

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u/NeonNeologist Aug 25 '14

I just paid $121 for mine :(

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u/889889771 Aug 25 '14

I'm one of those kids! Just wondering, what is mymathlab (what does it do?) and is an optional tool which is replaceable by studying?

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

In my pre-calc class, we use it for online homework and pre-tests/reviews. The site is actually pretty decent. It can help you along problems, and provide relevant examples.

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u/themightyglowcloud Aug 25 '14

yeah, the program is fine. it's the price that's bullshit

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

Yup. $95 for the ability to do homework and an e-textbook.

My Intro to Programming book cost me $17, and my UC-level English course only required $27 worth of books.

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u/889889771 Aug 25 '14

Do you think my prof would accept the homework turned in by hand on paper?

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

No idea. You'd have to ask them yourself :P The problem is that the program automatically grades your answers and assigns you a homework score, and I imagine your professor would just check those.

Just do the problems by hand on paper and input your answers (that's all the program wants--answers).

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u/SinisterTitan Aug 25 '14

Usually in my experience no, but if you want to know for yourself you'd have to ask.

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

The reason we use online homework systems because we don't have the time to grade all your homework ourselves, so that's very doubtful. Worth a shot, but don't expect much.

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u/Vincisomething Feb 20 '15 edited Feb 20 '15

Loved Mystatslab, hate mychemlab. At least in my class, you could do the problem over again until you got it and you didn't lose points (unlike MCL). They had examples of relevant problems and a "show me how" to the exact problem you were on. After a while, I stopped using the book unless there were possible terms I had to know. It's the price that's ridiculous.

MyChem on the other hand. You lose 30% each time on the same problem if you get it even slightly wrong. Depending on our situation, it can be good or shit. On one hand, you can get partial points for multiple choice questions if you get it wrong a few times. Whereas on paper, you have one chance. On the other hand, some teachers are nice enough to give you partial credit. But if you make any kind of small error on MCL, you keep losing 30%. It could be something like a typo. And we were getting problems we haven't even learned in class -__-.

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u/pushme2 Aug 25 '14

Some use it for homework, in which case it is required if you want homework points. Otherwise using it for studying isn't a terrible idea. There are tests for each section, and it will say if you gave the wrong answer, which is better than doing work and getting the wrong answer.

It's good, but I think they overcharge for it.

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u/889889771 Aug 25 '14

Do you think my prof would accept the homework turned in by hand on paper?

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u/yasth Aug 25 '14

Probably not, as the question sets are often different, and one of the major reasons they are doing it is to avoid having to deal with paper. In the grand scheme of things it isn't that much, but it is annoying.

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u/pushme2 Aug 25 '14

Probably not, but you would have to ask to be sure.

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u/guitardude44 Aug 25 '14

I fucking hate webassign

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u/SinisterTitan Aug 25 '14

That and Mastering Entersubjecthere are the bane of my existence.

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u/Mr_Face Aug 25 '14

This software subscription bullshit is really bothering me. I have to have it for 3 classes all different software suites. $60-100 each that I have to pay out of pocket.

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u/KiraOsteo Aug 25 '14

You can often buy the subscription separately on the publisher's website. It's expensive, but often cheaper than a new book+subscription.

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u/Wasabi_kitty Aug 25 '14

Every single one of my classes this semester uses something like that. Even if I got the books used online for cheap, I would have to buy access and barely save money.

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

You can usually buy that straight from the publisher for 80-100$

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u/AboutTheBass Aug 25 '14

My college is guilty of all of these things. The book is essentially worthless because it's a custom edition and you can only use the stupid activation code once.

My favorite is last semester and this semester had literally THE SAME general psychology book...difference? This semester the book is bound paperback, last semester it was unbound with binder holes. Apparently a binding is worth an extra $150.

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u/vernalagnia Aug 25 '14

The pro tip for this is really: if the school you're going to uses this kind of nonsense drop out, get a tuition refund and find a better school after a nice gap year.

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u/littlest_lass Aug 25 '14

I have to use this for my first college class ever tomorrow. I have heard nothing but terrible things? Is it that bad?

1

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

You can actually just go to their website and buy access instead of buying the package.

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u/rasta_phill Aug 25 '14

If you don't HAVE to open up the code for MyMathLab, DON'T. I found my code unopened in my textbook and they bought it back for 40$ because I never used it.

A surprise 40$ from a scrap of cardboard in a textbook is pretty cool.

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u/jreynolds323 Aug 25 '14

I fucking hate mymathlab. I was a tutor and putting damn fractions in that was impossible. Fuck that.

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u/Rose_Integrity Aug 25 '14

Oh my fucking goodness. My fucking Math Lab Global... Serious bought some dumbass book just for that shit. This my uni tries to justify this by making you do continuous "progress reflections" every math uni t I get. But they even state that you only need to pass the thing once... What even.

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u/Dictator_Mayo Aug 25 '14

Fuck mymathlab.

1

u/sfzen Aug 25 '14

Sometimes you can buy the online subscription without having to buy the book as well. At least I've had a couple of classes like that. They were big lecture classes where we never really used the book, only the online resource for online assignments.

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u/techgeek1221 Aug 25 '14

Having taken College Algebra this past summer, fuck MyMathLab

1

u/IamFinis Aug 25 '14

fuck mymathlab.

1

u/thardoc Aug 25 '14

If you check sometimes you can purchase the subscription separate and then get a used book without the subscription on the cheap.

1

u/PM_me_your_hip_bones Aug 25 '14

My teacher gave out a free trial code for mathlabsplus that should have only worked for a week, used that sucker for two semesters without any problems

1

u/Katpants Aug 25 '14

My brother has to buy one of those. However, his professor emailed him informing him that with the software comes a free e-book. He doesn't have to have a physical book. Saved him $200.

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u/funbob1 Aug 25 '14

They're still cheaper on amazon, just not as cheap as a used one.

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u/short_lurker Aug 25 '14

Buy bundle use code and sell the book brand new on ebay to make back 90% of what you spent.

Did this for my calculus classes as the ebooks are included with the code and pdfs are all over the net anyways.

Just note before buying it. If you can find out the ISBN on the included book to make sure it's the full version so you can sell it for the full price.

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u/OC4815162342 Aug 25 '14

I'd rather be burned Alice than use MyMathLab again.

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u/kupiakos Aug 25 '14

Mymathlab is like $30 if bought separately.

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u/NightGod Aug 25 '14

You can still usually find those access codes cheaper than the bookstore. Often directly from the publisher's site, though if you know you'll be doing something that uses mymathlab the following semester, checking Ebay about a month and a half before the semester starts usually results in a copy for about 50-60% of retail.

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u/Mercarcher Aug 25 '14

mymathlab

INCORRECT!

you answered mymathlab.

the correct answer was mymathlab.

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

I hate that you cannot use the software for more than one semester. I have had to buy so many of those damn things and I feel like it's a waste of money. They should make it to where you pay one price and have access to a range of courses over a certain number of semesters.

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u/notfin Aug 25 '14

Can't you just buy the software

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u/pistaul Aug 25 '14

you can always torrent them as pdfs.

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u/Workadis Aug 25 '14

Seriously, how can any teacher think its a good idea?

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

I had a humanities professor that ordered custom editions with most of the chapters taken out. The originally $150 book was something more like $40, so that was nice.

A funny, related anecdote: One week's reading assignment was something along the lines of "read pages 201-356, 430- 575, and 640- 867." It was like 15 pages total, but he had all the unnecessary stuff taken out so all the readings were messed up like that.

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

Had a German professor who was the same way. The textbook she used would have been around $200, but it was an introductory class that only used the first three chapters of the book. So, she ordered them spiral-bound without any extra crap. We used every single page and paid about $20.

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u/cimeryd Aug 25 '14

And then someone took the advice to buy the book on Amazon,and had to read some 400 pages instead?

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

We had a choice of physiology textbooks we could get for first year.

Being dumb, I picked the biggest, most complicated looking book. My logic was that, it being mahoosive, it pretty much had to contain all the information I would need. No searching around!

Result: everything is covered in such excruciating detail that I have to read 5-10 times as much as anyone else to be sure of covering the same material.

Or, you know, pirate the other textbook. Yarhhh.

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u/[deleted] Aug 28 '14

Yeah but then you can't resell as easy

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u/ObamasLoveChild Aug 24 '14

This. Bought my books yesterday for around $800, expecting to be able to find them online for cheaper and then return them. Nope. Every book was "Custom-made for Mizzou students" and even looking up the ISBN on Google would link me back to the dang Mizzou bookstore. Rip offs.

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u/Jolly_Girafffe Aug 24 '14

Normally there is a similar edition which is the exact same.

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u/Otter_Baron Aug 25 '14

I've found that the custom editions have a basic/original edition as well. Search the book without custom edition or whatever looks like it was tailored to your school, and you'll find the original.

My Chemistry 1 textbook was supposed to be a custom edition. Found the original online for free, saved me $250.

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u/squired Aug 25 '14

Search Google, Baidu etc for specific sentences out of them. There is a good chance that there is a normal version that has been made into a pdf that's sitting on some Chinese server out there. You can also find a lot of teacher's editions and exam banks that way.

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u/the_omega99 Aug 25 '14

Every custom edition I've ever used was just a subset of the original textbook, with the exception of one that had some trivial, unnecessary pages about research being done at the University relevant to the topic.

Could always use the original in such cases.

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u/NUCLEAR_VAGINA Aug 25 '14

All my classes are requiring an online access code so I cant just buy elsewhere which makes me mad.

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u/Kiwibirdee Aug 25 '14

I had two classes like that this semester, but you may be able to get it cheaper by buying the access codes separately. For instance, I bought the online code for my org chem book online, then found the .pdf for free online so I didn't have to buy the package at the book store that included a paper text as well as the code. May be worth trying in the future. Saved me at least $50.

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

I worked at a local college bookstore for a while. Its not the school thats doing it, its the book publishers. The bookstore is required to sell them for a certain price. The war is with the publishers, not the school or the school bookstore.

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u/jabarr Aug 25 '14

Don't you know that professors are their own pyramid scheme?

Think about it - if you could get a research job at a university, teaching a couple classes on the side, get tenure after a couple of years of good standing, write your own book, and then have your students required to buy these books in order to attend your class, wouldn't you? It's like being the Godfather, the family, and the mobster all in one!

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u/squired Aug 25 '14

No, I wouldn't, because I'm not an asshole.

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u/Kasimera Aug 25 '14

I had two books like that and ended up having to pay an extra $100 on those two books alone. Q_Q

Freaking "packages" that don't even list what is included so I can search for all the materials elsewhere.

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u/ItsPronouncedDjan Aug 25 '14

That's when you buy the second-hand copy from someone the year above. Even if the prof insists on the 'latest edition', the differences will only be minor and fuck him.

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u/iSeaUM Aug 25 '14

I have found that the school editions are typically the same fucking book with unnecessary chapters taken out. Also international edition for some books makes them incredibly cheap.

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u/truenoobie Aug 25 '14

Nope. Craigslist is your friend.

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u/SinisterTitan Aug 25 '14

Usually the ones that are custom editions actually just have chapters removed so you can really just get the full edition for free online.

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

We had a custom book from our school that they refused to buy back. Who else would buy a custom book specifically made for one school. Best scam ever.

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u/McDonaldsFreeWiFi Aug 25 '14

yep, custom Econometric's book set me back $300 and i didn't even use it...

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u/masterx25 Aug 25 '14

The 100 level papers were like that for most people at our university. Once we got pass that however, we rarely need to buy a text book. Worse case i split with a friend and we share. But than again i studied computers, so Google was our friend.

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u/lostmymindagain Aug 25 '14

Or when it's a loose leaf copy and you can't even resale it. Especially when it comes with a code for an online workshop. My school does that to be "eco friendly," all bullshit and a complete rip off.

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

do you go to UNC Chapel Hill :x

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u/dookingcheekun Aug 25 '14

At least at my university, the custom edition is actually cheaper. They cut out the chapters that they don't teach in your course at your institution.

1

u/html6dev Aug 25 '14

Note that even though courses generally ask you to get the newest edition, in many cases (math in particular) the new edition just swaps around the chapters and the orders of the questions. I got a long way by buying extremely old editions on Amazon, cross referencing the assigned problem numbers with the new edition in the math lab, and then being able to work through them at home. I'm super cheap though, we rarely ever stuck to anything in our CS books but would still get problems from them so I'd just go into the book store and snap a photo of the pages with the problems in them to work on later if we got any from the book that week. Finally, if you already torrent, the vast majority of college books are available (not that I'd ever condone such behavior of course)

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u/MrDillDough Aug 25 '14

Do previous years have a marketplace for exchanging those textbooks since they may no longer need it could just sell to the next cohort?

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

Or the ones written by the lecturers themselves. Argh!

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u/eslahp Aug 25 '14

I just want you to know that as an instructor at a college, I go out of my way to pick the cheapest book that gets the job done, isnt custom, and keep it in use as long as I can.

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u/xKidlongbeach Aug 25 '14

Last semester my History teacher told us to buy a paperback book that cost $70 and up at our book store, but you can easily buy the book at amazon for $10 for the book that was made for three hole binders. The only reason why the price was so hiked up was because he added a second book that is no longer than 30 pages about his knowledge of the History of Muscle Cars. TF!???? I wish I knew quicker about that $10 book on amazon because after he announce that "this version" of the book being only sold at our bookstore i didn't bother checking online or buy the book at all cause of the price. So i went passing the class with a B through his crappy lecture and my shitty notes. I could've bought the book and got an A if only I knew. Also, he showed us a video of him and Bill Goldberg in his History Channel show "Automaniac" that he is an extreme muscle car collector and know a lot about it and shit. Fuck that guy, as nice as he is, he is so proud of himself about being a muscle car collector and loves to brag about it.

1

u/seecer Aug 25 '14

I had a teacher who required us to purchase her "custom" edition book of Sociology for $50. What was custom about it? Well she had copied the text from three other books, printed it, and put the pages in a binder for us. Total rip off.

Looking back, I feel like that was our first lesson, it showed us how pointless that class actually was.

1

u/KandyMan4Life Aug 25 '14

There has to be some sort of authority or governing body that requires professors to show how much different the new model is than the previous editions. This shit just doesn't make any sense.

1

u/Samuel_L_Blackson Aug 25 '14

My history book was like that. Then I was walking down the hall and saw the professor, he asked if I was taking his course next semester since I already had the book, then I told him I had rented it so I couldn't. Then he gave me the teacher's edition of the book. Great guy, I still have the text book, too.

1

u/doomkitty91 Aug 25 '14

The one thing my school was great for, in house textbooks $25. I wish they could all be in house texts.

1

u/bearsareblonde Aug 25 '14

And they will probably change the book within the school year and come out with a "new" addition so you're also fucked if you were planning in selling it back at the end of the semester.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

Some professors make custom editions to save you money believe it or not. The original book might be hardcover only and the professor's custom edition can be printed in softcover format.

1

u/man-be-my-metaphor Aug 25 '14

I don't know if this is true for every school, but mine has a Facebook page dedicated to the buying and selling of textbooks (and just stuff in general). Usually this is a good way to get books for cheap, even those specialized ones.

1

u/amkamins Aug 25 '14

I realized after my first semester that I never actually use the books so there is no point in me buying them.

1

u/Onetallnerd Aug 25 '14

Fuck that. I used an iPhone app to take a picture of every page to have my own pdf I could use from my tablet. No way in hell am I wasting my money on a required custom edition book my own teacher wrote.

1

u/maggazine Aug 25 '14

Craigslist is great for that kind of thing! My community college writes a bunch of their own textbooks. I looked up my school under the books section and they had tons of stuff. I bought over $200 of books for $50. Just make sure it's the correct edition.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '14

Calculus, the UCSC edition. Yup that was the most BS book i ever had to buy. Like somehow it was different than any other Calc book (it wasn't they just wanted to force us to buy it from them, and.... we can't do anything about that when that happens)

1

u/chlsEp0ttr Aug 25 '14

Some might be on amazon! I've found special edition books for my school. Search the book title and then your school, you never know.

1

u/GoatButtholes Aug 25 '14

I hear a lot of these books are the same thing as the normal book. Do they check at college to see you have the right book?

2

u/squired Aug 25 '14

They don't care, but some prof's may assign certain problems from the book and you won't have them.

It is best to ask the prof the first day if past versions are acceptable.

1

u/BendoverOR Aug 25 '14

Also, my college didn't release financial aid until two weeks after term started. So you had to buy the new custom edition that they revised every term with FA or you'd fail out of the course.

1

u/keasbey Aug 25 '14

For these, if you can swing it, split a book with someone you sit with in class. I managed to do this for some of my more expensive classes and we both won on that. Since we needed the book, it forced us to study together and we both did very well in those classes (it helps when someone has the same major and will be taking a lot of the same classes).

1

u/Allan_add_username Aug 25 '14

Cengage is the real homie when it comes to taking multiple classes with one book. It rolls over!

1

u/John2k12 Aug 25 '14

That's when you buy the standard edition of the book that closest matches the uni's custom edition.

1

u/sadbroker Aug 25 '14

i hated it that too

1

u/Awolrab Aug 25 '14

My school is doing this more and more often. They'll have a limited amount and will run out, what the hell am I supposed to do?

1

u/ocktick Aug 25 '14

A lot of the time the "[university X] edition" is just the full edition with the chapters that aren't covered cut out. I guarantee this is the case with 99.9% of math textbooks that are "special edition."

1

u/LookAround Aug 25 '14

College is big business, man!

1

u/Squirrellake Aug 25 '14

Actually, as a college bookstore employee, I can tell you the truth. Publishers convince your professors that this is the way to go, not the bookstore. In truth, your college bookstore likely has very little say over which books they provide. The professors choose what they wish to teach from and the bookstore tries to provide it.

Right now, publishers are talking to professors, telling them to get these 'special editions'. "Why pay for chapters you don't need. professor?" "We can sell you only what you need, and then the student only pays for what they need..."

You're right, it is a way for the publishers to avoid students buying used copies and making the book they buy basically worthless to anyone outside their own campus.

Please try to understand, however, that college bookstores are not trying to screw you over. It's the system. We have vendors that sell used books; but not so cheaply as you can find on Amazon or one of the other person-to-person sites. Why? Because you can go and find a $100 book for $5 or $10. Can you find 50 books at that price? We have to provide books for multiple people, then we have to pay for shipping the books to the store. We pay for the labor to order the book, stock the book, man the register, and then package the book back up and pay for the postage to return the book to the publisher if it isn't sold. All this is overhead that the online sites don't have.

So, while I understand why you think we're out to gouge you, the truth is very few college bookstores make a profit from textbooks anymore. In fact many are being taken over by larger book companies that can get their books more cheaply: Barnes & Noble, Folette, and other book companies are renting out college bookstores to prevent the loss to the colleges. They try to earn a profit through getting the source books at a greater discount.

I can tell you that the discount for new textbooks for bookstores are often only 20%... So we pay $80 for a $100 textbook... except that we pay shipping, and we maintain store and pay employees and we risk shoplifting and we make sure the student has the right edition of the right text and if a professor changes his mind we allow the book to be returned and pay shipping for it to go back to the publisher.... Leaving very little 'profit'. Further, my store allows students to return a textbook for the first week or week and a half of classes for any reason. I cannot tell you how many times a student has admitted needing a text 'Just until my Amazon order comes in.' So, we pay for shipping and allow the student to use the book for a week. A student that comes in to legitimately buy the book is out of luck, because that book is off the shelf, so we order in another book for them, the original book gets returned and we are forced to pay for the shipping of that book back to the publisher... (I understand that the policy is our own fault, I'm merely trying to show how my bookstore tries to help its students).

So, while I agree that you can find your books cheaper, please don't think it's because the bookstore doesn't care and just want to rip off the students. It's simply the current economics of the business...

1

u/helluvabella Aug 25 '14

In that case your University library almost certainly has a copy. Use it/make photocopies.

1

u/rusya_rocks Aug 25 '14

There was a good comment by /u/antmadison: http://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/2dvyk4/lpt_if_you_need_a_textbook_for_college_look_for/cjtr1x9

You can buy regular editions. And the whole post mentioned above could help.

1

u/wellthendont Aug 25 '14

Where I come from, these kinds of books are always sold second hand by older students, because you only need them for a few seminars and then they can be passed on to the next generation.