StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Well, the start of the school year is upon us. Fellow students, how bad of an ass-reaming did the publishing companies give you for this semester?

Edwards and Penny, Elementary Differential Equations, Fourth Edition.
$82.50 used.
Fowles and Cassiday, Analytical Mechanics, Sixth Edition.
$92.25 used.
Schaum's Outlines - Mathematical Handbook of Formulas and Tables, Second Edition.
$12.71 used.

Total with sales tax: $201.52.

The fuckers didn't take American Express, which really pissed me off.

I won't buy my psychology book until I'm sure I actually need it. I've bullshitted my way through 100% of all social science classes I've taken thus far without using the books at all.

$116 overall. Not bad, really.

$201.52

Poor baby!

You oughta be a business student; I'll be lucky to pay less than 300 bucks for some pretty thoroughly used books, and I'll be even more lucky if I get 25 percent of that back come when I sell my books back. It's a fucking rip-off, I tell you.

IIRC I paid about $450 CDN last semester. This fall it will probably be the same.

Don't know, I don't move back until the 24th. Probably going to be bad though. Last semester was ~$350 US. I was just glad I got $100 off for helping with freshman registration.

This semester'll probably be worse, since I have 6 academic courses to buy books for. I may get my Greek and Hebrew books on loan from the professors, though, so it may not be a complete ass-reaming.

Durandal wrote:Total with sales tax: $201.52.

That's an awfully cheap set of books. My 3rd and 4th year sets came to $500-700+ CDN per semester.

I have it easy this semester. My physics book covers all major lover division physics courses that I first bought my sophmore year. Same with my calculus book. The only thing that hits me is my misc. GE classes, but that shouldn't be too bad.

I'll find out soon enough.

Oh, I thought this thread was refering to something else.

Damn, I was prepared to tell the story about how I went temporarily insane last semester...

Oy, buying textbooks in college is massive fucking financial abuse. I've averaged somewhere around $200 per semester.

Lancasters book list last year probably set me back about 120 quid a semester at most, at the least, about 20 quid. Oregon's book list for this first term costs (new), probably about 150 quid...

Oooh finiacly, I though you ment mentaly,


It was once commented on that if your avarage classified field manual were ever accidently handed to theat Russians that encyrption or not they would not be able to understand it considering your avarage go verment pub consist of prehaps six lines of text and eight pages of codes and cross refences to other works which offer the vauge hope of useful information but instead acutal are just the same thing, but with more references

I beat you fucking all:

Ethics: $170
Associations: $266
Competition: $100
Consumer Protection: $115
Criminal Procedure & Evidence: $220

This thread is over, thank you, and good night!

It always mystifies me that public schools, with all their budgetary woes, can afford enough textbooks to just hand them out to students at the beginning of the year, yet universities, where you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend, require you to buy your own fucking textbooks. I mean, it's not like they have that much else to spend it on-maybe a couple of renovation projects or a new building, and the faculty's *snerk* salary. And they'd only have to buy one class's worth of books-just have the students give them back when they fail/pass/drop out, give them to next year's class.

0 EURO for books

but my last semester project was 450 EURO only for cardboard, wood, and these little dried plants you use to make trees.

It always mystifies me that public schools, with all their budgetary woes, can afford enough textbooks to just hand them out to students at the beginning of the year, yet universities, where you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend, require you to buy your own fucking textbooks.

Actually, some states do not hand out textbooks to students (Texas, for example).

I mean, it's not like they have that much else to spend it on-maybe a couple of renovation projects or a new building, and the faculty's *snerk* salary. And they'd only have to buy one class's worth of books-just have the students give them back when they fail/pass/drop out, give them to next year's class.

Those renovation projects and salaries keep your university competitive, chief. To continue to be competitive colleges have to constantly spend money improving themselves.

As for colleges giving out books, probably wouldn't be a good idea. There is way too much diversity among professors and too much unreliability among students. Keeping a massive textbook library designed to service thousands of students would be a huge new cost to universities and would not really make them more competitive in the process; it would only make the cost of school cheaper by a few hundred bucks a semester overall, and would not contribute to the overall academic quality of the University.

Graeme Dice wrote:

Durandal wrote:Total with sales tax: $201.52.

That's an awfully cheap set of books. My 3rd and 4th year sets came to $500-700+ CDN per semester.

Yeah, but he's talking (I think) US dollars, so if you do the conversion...

Sorry, couldn't resist a cheap shot.

Anyway, I think a lot of college kids write in the books, make notations, etc. If you had to give them back, you'd never be able to do that. Plus, it'll give you something to keep later as a refrence should you need it (I'd love to have some of my old HS math books, for example, because I really suck at remembering this stuff when I haven't used it in a long time).

$60 bucks total for 4 books. We've worked out a system with my buddies where one guy buys the books and then takes them to the printers and makes a bunch of copies. The group then splits the cost of the books and printing. Fuck it, I ain't paying $100 for a book that I'll only use half of at most. I'm a cheap bastard, money is better spent on music, bicycles, and hi-fi stereo equipment.

I don't have books. I'll know my cost of art supplies next week.

$0. It appears I'll be able to borrow books for every class this semester.

Those renovation projects and salaries keep your university competitive, chief

If only.

Dont' know the exact breakdown, as I have tried to forget it... But, I forked over a little less than 500 bucks for my books this semester.

Andrew J. wrote:It always mystifies me that public schools, with all their budgetary woes, can afford enough textbooks to just hand them out to students at the beginning of the year, yet universities, where you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend, require you to buy your own fucking textbooks. I mean, it's not like they have that much else to spend it on-maybe a couple of renovation projects or a new building, and the faculty's *snerk* salary. And they'd only have to buy one class's worth of books-just have the students give them back when they fail/pass/drop out, give them to next year's class.

Schools have a standardized cirriculum for each subject on each grade level, can use the same books year after year, and keeping track of the books is much simpler logistically. Add to that that the textbook companies print hundreds of thousands of copies of books for use on the K-12 level, so the fixed costs involved in producing textbooks can be distributed more evenly, resulting in a lower book cost. And there are more people qualified to write high school textbooks than college.

Contrast this to colleges, where each professor decides what books he wants to use, the subjects are more diversified and the material more comples, and the average textbook has a print run in the hundreds and must be replaced when new editions come out, reflecting new advancements in the field which don't matter on the high school level but are critically important to someone who's studying for a bachelor's degree (can you imagine an international relations class where the textbook was printed in 1989?). The logistics involved would be horrendous, and besides that, most students like to write in their books and highlight the relevant passages, which would quickly render a shared textbook worthless.

Hrm, I think I spent more on tapes and equipment for shoots than I did on actual books.

Duriong the third and fourth years, I spent about as much on photcopying journals than I did on books.

Pity the fools who now have to pay for printing - I saved so much using electronic journals.