Greetings fellow readers,
I write you to today in full disgust and outrage at the price of books, shipping, rushed shipping, required books, and the thin white paper that textbooks are printed with. I mean, it’s pretty cheap, thin paper that is smooshed together..why does it cost so much?? I am truly at a slip of grip at outlandish anger towards the corporations gaining revenue from charging college students a months utility bill!
Now, that’s out of my system…. Hello! Happy end of January. The 31st, exciting day for marking the first calendar month back in classes and thinking. My classes are great. It is my first semester with only ONE lab a week! I have had TWO every semester, so like 8 hours of a lab a week for separate courses down to ONE! Honestly a blessing as a junior. I am also hunkering to fulfill my required art credits for distribution. I am taking a Creative Nonfiction class and World Theater class. They are very fun and challenging. It is a great mix up in my normal thought process…meaning, I learned to think more objectively and less creatively because of the more scientific field I’m venturing into. So it is nice to express myself in a literary way again. Along with learning about global trends in theater and theatrical history of world culture, it’s really a class of watching performances from different cultures throughout the globe and analyzing it for variation in elements of theater.
Luckily, my World Theater class doesn’t need any books…but all my other classes do. I’m taking An Ecology and Geology of Soils class that meets twice a week for an hour a half every afternoon. It requires a book that is a bit disproportionate to the classes credentials. It is taught by an soil ecologist, the profession is there, but the importance of it teeters. As a geology major, it is a great class to take and is highly encouraged. But the class is also an environmental science, open to non-majors, and popular because the professor is a casual fun one. So there are many non-science majors taking it fulfill their environmental studies distribution and not necessarily consider it an overall useful class for them or their real interest. So, paying over $200 for the text is a little hard to agree too. And I have not bought the book because I don’t have the budget too.
My last class is Petrology. That text was expensive. Last semester I made a good deal with renting my books and buying used copies. This semester is was a little harder to do that because my large, pricey books could not be rented. So I made my book budget a little too small for the first month of the semester and I’ll tough out the rest of the class till I can get the book. Real world stuff right there kiddos. The books for my creative nonfiction class were reasonable. I was able to get them. And I’m glad i did. They are more informal and fun, so a great addition to my bookshelf after I’m done with the class!
I bought all my books to own them. That is the biggest factor of this semester that I prefered. My Mineralogy class last semester is still using the book this semester in my Petrology class. Same professor, which is nice to have a professor for an entire year. A whole ordeal happened that made me purchase my textbook I rented for mineralogy so I own the book now. I was very happy to know I could keep the book because it had a lot of useful information! So, imo, buy the book to own, it pays off better that way. But rentals are great for classes that might require books outside of your core classes. Also they’re great for budget.
At the end of the day, I paid what I paid and I’m happy to own information valuable to me. Prepare for the outrage when classes come ’round again. Also, look online because college bookstores are very expensive. A $19 book in store was $12 online with a discount after shipping. Yea, look online.
Have a good rest of your day and make smart choices.
Megan