textbooks-249x352For many students, their worst nightmare. Expensive, heavy, many times boring – students wish they could just do their classes without those tag-along fiends!

But fear not young scholars! Don’t let textbooks weigh you down! Find out the system to let you make that textbook load a lot lighter!

Buy second-hand

Very few students buy the new edition of the book. A new one comes out every year, with practically nothing new except a couple grammar changes here and there. So buy the older editions, not the newer! Many campuses will have online sites where students sell their books to each other. So you can sell yours, and then buy another’s – the ultimate in recycling!

Borrow

Most textbooks can be found in the library. These books generally will have a very short lending limit – generally around 2 hours. But that’s plenty of time! Take the book, read it, copy the practice problems, do whatever you need to do, then return it. You’ll probably crack that library borrowed version more than a version you bought.

Wait for the professor

A lot of students make the mistake of buying all their textbooks. They show up on the first day of class. “Hello class! There’s been a slight change to the syllabus – you’ll no longer need two of the books,” or “Hello class! I know textbooks are so much for you guys these days, so I have a class set you can come to my office hours to use.” Whatever the case may be – many times the professor will tell students on the first day of class if they’ll need their books at all!

Share

Need to buy that new edition? Well, why just you? Find a couple of your friends in the same class and grab it together! You’ll be studying together every week anyways, sharing the cost of the book is just like sharing your notes!

With these tips you can make sure that those textbook blues turn into a good rhythm for your semester!