College Life 101 – How to Save Money on Textbooks!

Hey everyone!

My name is Briney Arulnesan, but you can refer to me as Bry. I am a 23- year-old student currently attending Seneca College for Medical Administration. I wanted to start giving students some helpful advice because starting a new semester in college can be rough! From the major costs to the stress of finals and dealing with work, school, and a social life, it can be a bit of a roller coaster ride! Being in college for a while now I found some tips and tricks that have saved me a ton of money on textbooks.

Textbooks can cost anywhere from $100-$500, and that's cheap! Some can cost even more depending on the program your enrolled in, sometimes even $500 for just one textbook!

Step 1: Attend orientation!

Attending orientation can help you gain helpful information about the school and also programs, groups, and resources that can help out when you are buying books. There is always a Buy & Sell used books Facebook page or even any social media page that is associated with the college/university. You can join for free and find posts of past students who have already taken your program and want to sell you their books for half the price or even less!

P.S: This is a useful group to join as later on, you can sell your books in the same group!

Step 2: Do your research!

Before you attend the first day of classes, there will always be a course outline for all your courses posted on Blackboard. This is the site where all your courses will be posted and announcements will be made by your professors. Be sure to check out what textbooks you need for each of your courses, as you can even get deals online through Kijiji and Amazon! These are just two of the major sites where the same textbooks can be selling for much cheaper and can be delivered to you as quick as you want them to be!

It's also a good idea to keep your Kijiji and Amazon accounts as you can later on make postings for your old textbooks and get some extra cash.

Step 3: When you attend your first week of classes and you still haven't bought your textbooks yet, do not worry!

This is a normal thing most students do not purchase until they attend their first day of classes. Attend your first week of classes and find out from your professors if you actually need textbooks for your courses! Some professors actually do not require the use of textbooks where others do, and they may require specific editions. It's important to attend and find out what exactly you need! This will save you a lot of time and money in the long run.

P.S: You can always disregard step 2 and attend classes first, then start doing research online to find your textbooks!

Step 4: Look for online versions of your textbooks!

Surprisingly most textbooks are available for purchase online for less than half the price in PDF formats, that can also be printable! Some people like it downloaded and saved to their laptops; that can be done as well through PDF formats, and hey you can have it able to you wherever you go no extra heavy book in your bag!

Step 5: Connect with people from higher years!

This step ties into step one! If you attend orientation there will always be previous students there to help and mentor you. It's important to stay in constant contact with them as they can even sell you their textbooks for cheap since they know you well!

I hope this was helpful to all of you students starting your first days in college or university, this will be the first installment of my College Life series. Expect more to come because trust me it will get more stressful, but hang in there your never alone!

Thanks,

Bry :)