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[Aklyon]

Currently attempting to purchase textbooks.

Really new really expensive ones, or used ones?

[Vector]

Currently attempting to purchase textbooks.

Really new really expensive ones, or used ones?

I'm a math student.

What this means: the standard price for some of my texts is $100 used, but there's free electronic editions for those of us who can study by staring at a computer screen.

I am not one of those people.

[Nadaka]

Yea. I've had semesters where I spent a $800+ on books. Also had a geology class where my professor wrote the text book we were using, but decided to hand out printouts instead because he thought it was too expensive.

[Vector]

Oh, really?  Frankly, I feel a little bit better =/  I've never had to spend anything like this amount of money on textbooks before, and it's kind of disturbing me.

On the other hand, I am about to be the proud owner of some 7 or 8 books on abstract algebra alone (I already had maybe 5 or 6), so I'm getting a bit weirded out by my current possessions.

[nenjin]

The best part, so far, of graduating college for me has been not having to buy textbooks. Used to be filled with rage at the average ~$250 a semester I'd have to spend on overpriced core textbooks, and stupid peripherals for class like wireless response devices for mass testing in classrooms. Paid $50 fucking dollars for that thing, used it once and it has no practical application anymore unless I break it open and reprogram it.

On the other hand, I have a whole library of history and social textbooks now that'd make me look all smart 'n stuff if I ever actually owned a home with a study. And those I like. But when you're paying ~$75 for a Macroeconomics textbook you SWORE you'd used in high school, you start to hate the system for even making it necessary.

[Vector]

Well, this isn't like last semester when I had to buy two fucking terrible expensive never want to see them again AA books for a class that barely used them.  These are all really spectacular textbooks.

Just wish they didn't cost quite so much.

[alway]

wireless response devices for mass testing in classrooms. Paid $50 fucking dollars for that thing, used it once and it has no practical application anymore unless I break it open and reprogram it.

Ah, I had to get one of those; ours were $30. Though reselling to freshmen or using them to dev something isn't out of the question. IIRC, the professor who used them said something about being in contact with the creators and that an SDK was available for us if we wanted to try making some sort of game with them. Granted, it was a course for game dev and interactive media students.

I've had it pretty good so far when it comes to textbooks. At RIT, the unofficial policy for textbooks is to wait until after the first week of class to buy them; professors know how much of a racket text books are and so most don't use any. They tell whether or not to buy or what to buy in the first class session, with almost everything being optional. My entire first year, I think I've spent under $300 total on textbooks, and most of those I ended up not even needing. It's probably different for other majors, or even for other people though; almost all my classes are major-specific (almost no gen-ed requirements left after my AS degree at the community college), and everything within the major can be looked up online with info as good or better than the textbooks.

[olemars]

I had to spend $300-400 each semester on textbooks for five years. Looks good on the shelf of course, but really aggravating at the time. At least some of them are good enough to be worth the money (Kreyszig, Edwards&Penney), but a lot of them I barely even used.

Math books actually aren't the worst. I took a couple of history classes for fun, they would have 3-4 hideously expensive books on the curriculum and only refer to one or two chapters in each of them. I've long suspected there's some sort of worldwide textbook mafia out there.

[Vector]

Ah, yeah.  At least with quality math textbooks, you know that every damned page is worth it.

[nenjin]

I've long suspected there's some sort of worldwide textbook mafia out there.

There is. It's called the publishing industry.

[G-Flex]

Ah, yeah.  At least with quality math textbooks, you know that every damned page is worth it.

Of course it's worth it if you specify "quality". And hell, even then it's not necessarily true: Textbook publishers will often release new editions every 1-3 years even if it's completely unwarranted and the only changes are some minor edits to review questions or minor changes in layout, meaning just enough that you need to buy the new one. This is one of the ways they try to hold the resale market down as hard as they can. I personally don't consider a $150 book "worth it" if there are three prior editions floating around that are almost identical that I could purchase used for $20, or at least would be able to if the class weren't using the review questions and page numbers of the new one.

I've had some really, really bad textbooks before. It's sad. I took an A+ computer hardware certification course, and the textbook (which was the/a official textbook) had some startlingly inaccurate method in it, and seemed written for non-technical people. It was sad. There was literally a point where it stated how many samples of audio per second the human ear is capable of hearing; if you know anything about hearing or acoustics or digital audio, you should probably be doing a spit-take right now. Put in other terms: If you literally end a paragraph about DVDs with the sentence "The sound effects can be awesome!" then you should probably look for another job.

[ein]

Really angry, so I went to get some coffee to calm my nerves, but the only coffee is stuff that was left IN THE FUCKING FRENCH PRESS for six hours~
Ugh, what a waste of perfectly good coffee~

[Lysabild]

Really angry, so I went to get some coffee to calm my nerves, but the only coffee is stuff that was left IN THE FUCKING FRENCH PRESS for six hours~
Ugh, what a waste of perfectly good coffee~

Coffee sucks anyway :b Drink tea!

[ein]

I can't stand tea~
It's weak and thin and bland compared to good coffee~

[Nadaka]

I can't stand tea~
It's weak and thin and bland compared to good coffee~

Though hast blasphemed. Put some ice in your tea and drink it instead of water.