Textbooks are one of the most expensive costs for a college student, especially if you’re going into a major that is heavy on reading. If you’re a broke college student, finding cheap textbooks is a priority. It’s also not hard to do.

Before You Buy Your Textbooks

There are a few questions to ask yourself before you buy all the books on your syllabus.

Do I need this book?

The first step is to figure out whether you’ll use the books on your syllabus. Most professors will be honest and tell you how much you need the book. If you’ll only use the book a few times, see if you can borrow it from a classmate.

Which edition?

First step is to ask your professor, when they’re going over the syllabus is the best time, if the newest edition is necessary. Most professors, my mom included, don’t necessarily need or want you to have the newest, most expensive edition unless whatever changed is exactly what is needed for the class. Usually the new edition has a few grammatical fixes and a fancy new cover and that’s all.

eBook or real book?

Once you know you need a book, decide whether you want to buy a real book or an eBook. eBooks are more affordable and portable, but they are more difficult to highlight or otherwise annotate. Real books are more expensive, but many people find that they retain the information better when reading it from paper rather than a screen.

Renting or owning?

If you’ve settled on a real book, the next step is to decide if you want to rent or own the book. The upside to renting is it’s cheaper, but the downside is you can’t sell it at the end of the semester. If the book is going to be worthless at the end of the semester and you know this, go with renting. If you can sell it back to Amazon or another online marketplace with a textbook buy-back program, own it.

Finding the Best Prices for College Textbooks

Before your make a purchase, do some price comparisons. Many online retailers do that for you, but it’s in your best interest to visit some brick and mortar locations as well.

Bookstore prices

Go to the official campus bookstore and go to the unofficial bookstore. Check the prices on the books you need, make a nice comparison chart that will save your life.

Many college bookstores also have a book buyback program, where you can sell them your old textbooks for store credit on future textbooks or supplies.

There might also be a book swap or sell group on campus. Usually you can find signs posted, or it might be a Facebook group. This is another IRL way to get cheap books. Used books are great because important passages are typically already highlighted for you!

Online prices

Now, go home and check Craigslist, Ebay, and Half.com Add these prices to your chart. Search using the books ISBN number to get the correct edition.

Craigslist is a potential option for anyone living in a college town. Many students sell their used textbooks to other students through Facebook or Craigslist at a discounted rate.

Amazon
The Amazon we know today sells practically everything, but it was originally a bookstore. You can still find great deals on textbooks, particularly eBook versions.

Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble has many textbooks, most of which you can sell back to them when you are done.

Chegg
You can buy or rent books from Chegg for a very low price. They have a good selection of books to choose from, and if you can decide to keep a book you are renting, for a fee.

Valore Books
Valore makes it easy to find books with their ISBN search tool.

Campus Books
The best part about Campus Books is that you can use their search function to scour multiple sites for the same book. This way, you’ll always get the best price.

Compare

Now that you have your nice chart comparing prices/shipping charges, do a little math see which deal is best. If you have a school email address, you can often get Amazon Prime free for 6 months, and then at a reduced rate thereafter. This might help offset potential shipping costs, and make Amazon the best option.

Finding the best price

Throughout your search for a book, you will need to compare textbooks and find the best price. The easiest way to find cheap college books is to search websites for the ISBN and compare prices. There are tons of websites out there for you to compare prices easily and having the ISBN is the best way to do it.

Where to Sell Your College Textbooks

Most websites that sell textbooks will also buy them back, including Amazon and Valore Books. Here are a few more websites that will buy your books for real cash.

• ECampus
• TextbookX
• BookScouter

What are your tricks for finding the best deals on college textbooks?

College is the perfect intersection of freedom and young adulthood: Never again will you be allowed to have that much fun while being responsible for so little. But as generations of students have learned the hard way, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by that freedom and go overboard. It’s a fun but intimidating time, and the best way survive your freshman year is to be prepared.

How to Survive Your Freshman Year

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

Spoiler alert: You can’t do it all. Not even close.

College is about learning to prioritize and tell the difference between what you can do, what you want to do, and what you need to do. The biggest mistake freshmen make is taking on too much.

If you want to get ahead, you’ll have to scale back.

Set up a schedule to follow each week and stick with it. It doesn’t have to overly detailed or break down your life into 10-minute chunks. But, you should be able to look ahead each week and know what you’re doing every day and every night, from attending class to studying or just taking some time off to be with friends

You should also plan for free time, too. That might sound counter-intuitive or just plain impossible, but it’s not, and it’s absolutely worth it. As you build time for study and class, leave open chunks for hanging out, eating, wandering the dorms, or just seeing what comes up. Maintain your schedule and your sanity.

Avoid Credit Cards

Building credit is important in the long run. It shows banks that you’re trustworthy, it gives you access to better interest rates on loans, and it generally makes you feel like an adult.

But it takes years of controlled work to do that, and freshman year isn’t the time to start. Managing credit means using cards wisely, and only to make purchases you could buy with cash at that moment. Credit cards aren’t for making big buys that aren’t in your budget; they’re for showing banks you’ve got enough cash and maturity to pay your debts in full.

Getting into credit card debt while you’re still in college means you’ll be under the thumb of major lenders before you’ve even gotten your degree.

There’s plenty of time to be an adult and work with the complicated payment structures that come with credit cards. College is not that time.

Establish Your Independence

Don’t go home too often.

College is a crucial part of the development process as you make the rocky transition from childhood to young adulthood. It’s tempting to make frequent trips home, whether for a homecooked meal or clean laundry.

Unfortunately, that’s detrimental to your long-term success as a student and a rounded human being.

Independence is usually hard-earned, and that means getting used to being bored or rejected or even alone on campus. It means meeting people and making friends. It means shaking up your established routines and coming up with new ones. It means staying away from home.

College teaches resourcefulness and problem-solving, but you won’t be able to learn those skills without first relying on yourself.

Don’t Rush the Big Choices

Freshman year can feel like a barrage of life-or-death questions: What’s your major? What do you want to do? Where do you want to live? Do you want to go out sometime?

Guess what?

You don’t have to commit to a major when you begin your freshman year.

Many schools don’t push you to declare until you start your sophomore run. Use your freshman year to take your school’s required course and explore topics that interest you.

Your major will be a guiding force in your education and career, and it’s not a choice to be made lightly.

One of the worst things you can do is select a major because you don’t want to weigh any other options, or if it’s something you don’t like but are betting you will come to love in time.

Take your time on this one. Take a month, a semester, a year. Don’t just leap; look carefully. This is a great opportunity to get to know your guidance and career counselors, as well as professors in fields that grab your interest, to find out what’s required by students in your prospective major. Check out employment prospects with seniors or counselors.

The real lesson in picking a major is to learn how to examine yourself and figure out what you want, then take the steps to get it.

That’s not something you can knock out overnight.

Get Some Sleep

Really, do it. Get some good sleep as much as you can. Your mental and physical health depend on it.

A 2009 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that only 30% of college students surveyed got more than 8 hours of sleep a night, while more than 68% percent (!) had trouble sleeping because of stress related to their academic or personal lives. As a result, students with poor sleep habits turn in greater numbers to over-the-counter drugs to regulate their sleep cycles and moods.

Sleep-deprived students tend to perform worse in class and on tests than their more rested counterparts. Your body becomes sluggish, your brain operates through a thick fog, and your moods become erratic.

So what do you do?

Freshmen are terrible with time management. They stay up too late the night before an early class. They skip sleep altogether in favor of doing all the things. The FOMO is real, and it leads to some hectic and damaging hours. Don’t cheat yourself out of healthy sleep. It’s one of the best things you can do to stay healthy.

Moderation

If there’s one adage every freshman should heed, it’s this:
Strive for moderation in all things.

Party, but party responsibly. Work hard, but leave time to relax. Make new friends, but give yourself time to recuperate. Don’t shy away from big choices, but don’t rush into them, either. Lean on your folks, but not too much.

Freshman year is like nothing else. If you do it right, you’ll never forget it.

Nearly 80% of all college students will switch majors at some point. This makes it especially difficult for incoming freshman to determine the courses they will choose for their first year of college. Don’t stress if you’re still in the “undecided” camp; these tips will help you choose your college classes for your freshman year of college.

Once you’ve declared a major, this becomes much easier. Most colleges have advisors who will help you map the required courses for your chosen degree.

Choosing Your College Classes as a Freshman

·      Use the required classes as a base.

As you are going through trying to pick out your classes, pick out and map out the classes you are required to take first. These include your degree prerequisites and the classes you need for your major.

·      Map out a four-year plan.

Before you sign up for classes you should map out a four-year plan. Update this plan each semester. You modify it to make sure it accurately reflects the completed courses and the courses still needed for your chosen degree.

·      Make a list and prioritize.

Make a list of the classes you want to take and put it next to your list of required classes. Prioritize the classes or rank them according to what classes are most important. After this you will be able to figure out where you can make sacrifices as far as your classes and scheduling goes.

·      Work that schedule.

The most difficult aspect of choosing courses is getting a reasonable schedule. Some courses are offered only during certain terms, others require prerequisites that you haven’t yet taken, and others conflict with other required classes. Look at the course guide from previous and upcoming terms to plan your long-term course schedule, and do your best to stick to it.

·      Go to class.

Go to more classes than you need the first day. You will get to see all the different classes and teachers and be able to choose better what you want for yourself. After you decide, you can drop the classes you don’t want to keep.

·      It’s okay to pivot.

As we said, many students change their major as late as their fifth term in college. The good news is that the prerequisites for most majors are the same. Unless you choose a wildly different major halfway through college, you’re likely to still graduate on time if you work hard.

The mere fact that you’re taking down notes means you wanted to retain the information you wrote down. With that said, you should know exactly what you need to write down otherwise you’ll end up with too much garbage in the information you tried to acquire.

• Identify what’s new to you. There is no point writing down something that you already know. Why will you write down the information you’ve known from the heart?
• Determine whether your professor will most likely use the information later. Focus on things that directly demonstrate the lesson you’re studying including pertinent names, places and dates.
• Tricky information. We are well aware that our professors always try to trigger our logical mind by setting out traps and tricky questions in their examination. More often than not, the answers to these traps are given out during their lectures – not in the book. If you are particularly keen about observing such habits then it will be easier for you to crack it down.
• Side comments. Sometimes, side comments are ignored or considered unnecessary. However, most practical questions and answers can be found on side comments whether during lectures or books.
• Doubts. Your doubts and questions are the best source of useful information especially when you are faced with a tough exam ahead. There is not a single student in existence without questions about a certain lesson. If you have doubts, write it down and verify it in your research later on.

There is no easier way to face college than to plunge into it headlong.

Most students worry about making the best out of their semester which is usually gauge by the lessons you have learned throughout. But a more important thing is – how?

Organization This is usually self-explanatory for college students who have a hard time coping with time management and even studying. But here are some practical things you can follow –

•Take notes – “A dull pencil is better than a sharp mind.” This is usually one of the greatest adages that you can follow about studying and learning. There are things that your sharp mind tends to miss later on but when you write everything down on your notebook or post-it papers you enhance your chance at remember it later on.

•Agenda list – It is important that you make a regular weekly list of itinerary. Your agenda should give you sense of direction and purpose making everything better every day.

•Real time inbox – This is a figurative term which simply refers to a permanent place in your room or apartment where you study. This is where you will place all your notes, books and assignment papers.

•Get to know your professors – Search engines usually give you short biography on your teachers. Alternatively and more accurately, you can search about them in your school library. Learn about their research interests and knowledge.

•Study partner/mentor – The secret to success is not about being alone but being able to find someone who can understand your habits and study style.

Written exams make up the majority of your exams in college, which in turn make up the majority of your grade point average. Your performance on written exams will be directly reflected in your grades.

Basically, they’re a pretty big deal.

How to Improve Your Performance on a Written Exam

There are two skills you must master in order to improve your performance on a written exam:

Time management

Deduction

Both are essential skills that will not only give you a better chance of doing well on an exam, but they will also improve your academic performance overall.

Time Management

When taking a written exam, first allocate enough time for you to complete all the questions. Briefly review the test to determine the number of questions and how long each of them should take.

Reviewing the test in advance gives you the option to determine which questions you know well, and which questions will require more effort.

There are three categories by which you can divide the sets of questions during an exam but even though this takes time the end result is usually worth it. The three categories include –

• Questions you know well (easy questions)
• Questions you know better (moderately hard)
• Questions you know nothing about (hard questions)

Always answer the questions in order of difficulty, not necessarily the order that they are in on the test.

Avoid leaving questions blank. An incomplete or incorrect answer will always be better than no answer at all.

Deduction

The power of deduction is especially useful for moderate or difficult questions. Most people refer to this as an “educated guess,” because you use your education and contextual clues to determine the most likely answer.

Deduction is a powerful skill that can be practiced. Once you’ve answered all the easy and moderate questions, you can potentially use those answers to deduce the more difficult questions.

The average college student spends roughly 30 minutes each day just walking on campus. Double that for students who live off-campus and have to walk, ride, or drive a greater distance.

Just because that time is short, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything with it

Being Productive While Commuting

1. Listen to audiobooks, podcasts and class recordings – It has been proven that listening can significantly improve your knowledge base. It helps you discover the things you might have missed before.
2. Practice with flashcards – Flash cards are easy to read and it doesn’t even take 30 minutes to cover everything. If you don’t want to carry flashcards with you, you can download an app for your phone.
3. Prioritize your day– Whether you use a paper planner or your phone’s calendar app, take a few minutes of your commute to organize your day.
4. Proofread your papers – You can scan your papers and check for grammatical, spelling and sentence construction errors.
5. Scan class notes – Reading while you are on the move is a big no-no, so scan the highlights or even listen to lectures you have recorded on your phone.
6. Return calls, texts, and emails – If you’re like the rest of us, you’re probably awful at returning messages from people. Make it a daily priority during your commute to actually connect with people.

Your commute is also a good opportunity to focus on your personal growth. Use this time to practice breathing techniques and meditation as well!

There was a time where people looked down on trade school, which is why most 20-somethings are saddled with thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Fortunately, times and skills are changing. You can learn a trade and get a well-paying job in half the time of traditional college. Whether you choose the tech industry, the medical field, or learn a hands-on skill like welding; there’s a trade for everyone’s interests.

Benefits of Trade School

There are a lot of reasons why trade schools are a viable option. The current skilled workers are  aging out of their trades. Because college was pushed so hard to the millennial generation, few of us know these trades. There is a huge demand for many physical and technical skills, so the likelihood of finding a job is much higher.

Instead of focusing on a broad range of academics, with a focus in one area, trade schools teach you one specific trade. Examples include accounting, cooking, dental assistance, medical billing, paralegal, HVAC, etc. Once you graduate from a radiology program, for example, you will be able to enter the workforce as a radiologist. If your trade needs a certification, the schools will arrange and prepare you for the test.

Trade school programs often have smaller classrooms, which gives you more one-on-one time with the professor. Your peers are also taking the same classes so you can easily form study groups. This can also help you build meaningful contacts to help your career.

Studies have also shown that employers show a preference for students with tech school diplomas because they already have the know-how and hands-on learning.

The best benefit of all, it’s quicker and cheaper. Graduating from college takes 4 years, on average, while trade school is much quicker. Some programs are only 6-10 weeks and some take 2-3 years. Either way, your overall expenses, including tuition and fees is much less than they would be if you went to a four-year university.

Some professors like to torment their students with surprise quizzes and in-class assignments. Even if you’ve been paying attention, it can be difficult to take a quiz you had no idea was coming.

Here are some tips to give you a chance at passing a test you’re not prepared for.

How to Survive a Pop Quiz

Multiple Choice

• If two answers are extremely similar, it’s usually one of these two
• Correct answers rarely have spelling or grammatical errors
• For numbers, you’re safest choosing a number in the middle
• Watch out for absolute answers, such as “always” and “never”
• Often “all of the above” or “none of the above” is correct

True or False

Some professors like hiding trick questions in true or false exams, so be extra careful when reading the questions. You only have two choices, which mean that you have 50% chance of getting the correct answer.

• Lookout for small contradictions or inaccuracies. If one detail is false, the answer is false.
• Take note of qualifiers in the sentence like most, all, sometimes, never or rarely. They sometimes drive the question false depending on the question presented.
• Watch out for absolutes – things usually aren’t “always” or “never”

How do you handle a surprise exam that you have never prepared for?

College is the turning point in the life of most students. But, achieving academic success in college is also a struggle for most. How do other students manage to achieve their goals?

The key to success is simple: do your work. Study hard, learn the material, and do your homework.

Selecting the Best Place to Study

The most convenient way to study isn’t always the best choice. Most students choose to study in their rooms, but that is a haven of distractions. Between Netflix and to friends, having a good study session in your room is unlikely. Studying in your dorm room is bad , but studying on your bed is even worse.

The first thing that you need to do is to find yourself a study place. It should be a place that will promote learning, productivity, efficiency and concentration. It should be the place where you spend your time studying, and only studying. Some people like the library, others like a quiet café, it’s up to you.

Experiment on what works for you. Make a set of criteria like the level of noise, availability, cleanliness and accessibility.

Developing Study Skills

Once you have found the perfect place to study, you need to get started on developing your study skills.

•    Break subject matters into manageable chunks
•    Use your free time during daytime to study
•    Spend more time on difficult classes
•    Review notes, ask questions and discuss things with peers

All of these are the basic skills you need to work on. You will achieve academic success in no time if you follow them religiously.

Academic Success

• Study your lessons at least 3 days prior to your major exam for around 2-3 hours a day.
• Don’t study the night before you take the exam. Instead, you should go to bed earlier and get plenty of rest.
• Get to school early. Aim to be seated for your exam at least 10 minutes before it begins. This will help minimize text anxiety.
• Make sure you read instructions well and follow them strictly.
• Scan the entire paper before you answer any question to have enough time. This will allow you to keep track of time, instead of running out.
• Always check the back of each page for questions you might not otherwise notice.
• If you are answering essay questions, it is important that you state your complete answer. You need to read the question properly and answer it completely.