You think life would be so perfect. You got the non-resident tuition waiver scholarship as well as the Academic Excellence scholarship. You live in Griffis Hall and are a member of the Honors College. You think college is going to be awesome. And it is for the most part, but there is one problem which will keep recurring every semester: books.
As a freshman, I had no prior experience with buying books for college. In my high school, teachers gave us the books and expected us to return all of them at the end of the year. It was so easy and simple. We never had to worry about buying books and breaking the bank.
People warned me about certain things before I got here: “Don’t buy from the campus bookstore. It’s always expensive. Ask students who have taken the class whether you actually will use the book. Try to buy used books for lower prices. Keep your books in good shape so you can resell them after you are done with them.”
I registered just a few days before classes actually started. I clicked on the link which says “Buy or Reserve your Textbooks.” I was redirected to the Barnes & Noble Web site, which had a huge list of material (books, equipment, dictionaries and even study charts) for classes I am registered for.
Sadly enough though, the Web site does not show you the exact name of each book. I decided to wait until I could actually get the names of the books I needed so I could buy them elsewhere. The total amount of books I had to buy exceeded $1,200 from Barnes & Noble. I set about to research what books I would not need but could not find any information online. I waited until I got the syllabus for each class and then made a list of all the books I needed.
Textbooks: check. Study charts: uncheck. Dictionary: uncheck (the Internet is my dictionary). I bought an online version of the chemistry book. I rented books online from chegg.com. I also had to buy a few access codes for online homework. I bought a few books from Campus Bookmart, but because I kept adding and dropping courses, I needed books immediately. In addition, I got a few books from Barnes & Noble because Campus Bookmart ran out.
Barnes & Noble is way overpriced. Campus Bookmart is just a few yards away and has books 10 to 20 percent cheaper than Barnes & Noble. That is a lot of money. I just want to know why that is. I also want to know why when myBanner redirects me to buy books, I cannot find the full name or ISBN number of the book. It’s unbelievably preposterous.
Buying an online version of a textbook is the worst decision I have ever made concerning books. iChapters, the Web site I bought from, is just a scam because you buy the book (you actually just rent it for a set amount of time such as a semester or more) but then you cannot just log on and view the book. Instead you have to first download a program that creates a secure connection with the iChapters server and then you download the PDF file of the book, which is a protected secure PDF file.
You cannot open the file without first connecting to the server over the Internet and plugging in your username and password. Eventually, you get to view the book on the computer the program is installed on, but you cannot copy any part of the book. You cannot open the book on any of the computers in the university except your personal computer because you need to install a program and only have administrative rights on your personal computer.
Since reading the book on the computer screen is very daunting and distressing, I would rather print the book and read it. Thus I set about to print it, but was unsuccessful in doing so because I don’t have a personal printer and could not print in any of the computer labs. I had to go through a weeklong hassle of trying to get a printed copy of the book. In conclusion, never buy an online version of any book. I blame all those who illegally got PDF versions of their books through Bittorrent and caused the online book industry to secure the documents, making them tricky.
I learned my lesson. Since I am more established now, I can ask about what books to use the following semester. I can e-mail the teachers and ask them as soon as I register for classes. But I found the best place to get books from: chegg.com, my hero and savior. Chegg rents, sells and buys all kinds of textbooks for implausible prices. In addition, for every book you rent, the company plants a tree. So far they have planted more than one million trees and saved students more than $50,000,000. They saved me more than $500 just last semester. Some books I rented for about $10 and some cost me about $30. I no longer have to worry about selling or getting rid of my book after each semester, and I have the option of buying the book, if I wish to.
Chegg’s approach is truly environmental. The company want to people to stop buying books so we stop killing trees and instead promote sharing books with several people. If all of that does not please you, Chegg plants a tree for each book you rent. And by the way, it delivers books via UPS so chances of them getting lost are negligible.
I found out renting books from Chegg has been a good decision, especially now that I get a very special discount and I am willing to share with everyone I know. You can only imagine how much you will save until you actually try it. It’s a revolution. Don’t buy another textbook, ever! Rent them from chegg.com. You’ll save some serious cash – I am talking major. Hopefully, we will push the university, bookstores and textbook companies to be more considerate when putting the price tags on the books.
Abdallah Abu Ghazaleh is a freshman majoring in electrical engineering. He can be contacted at [email protected].