Imagine saving tons of money each semester, buying whatever it is you really want, and being able to avoid the “poor college student” lifestyle. Avoid these deadly sins and you’re on your way.
1. Don’t buy books from the book store. I can’t stress this one enough. I know I’ve gotten screwed enough times at the bookstore along with a lot of my friends. Don’t make the same mistake. Somehow these book stores have conjured up the sales technique of selling you a book for $100 and later buy it back from you for $4, and then sell it back to some other hapless student for $94 marked as “used.” The only thing getting used here is the student. Use services on the internet such as Half.com, Amazon, The Facebook Marketplace, or use comparative search tool like BigWords.com or BetterWorld that actually tells you the best price from a number of sellers. Make sure to order early so that your books arrive on time.
2. Don’t buy books until the first week of class has gone by. Let’s face it, you’re not going to read half of the books anyway. Instead of tossing money away to resell the books back with spine still intact, just sit through the class for a week and find out if the books are necessary. You might even find that you don’t want to take the class this semester anyway and by next year there will be a completely new professor teaching it and new set of books to read. If you miss an assigned reading, so what? It’s college. You will be able to make up for it when you’re positive you need the book. Not to mention you’ll have saved yourself plenty of money by not buying the “recommended reading” book that your prof loved as a child, but has nothing to do with the class.
3. Don’t drive. You don’t need a car. I don’t care how big your campus is or how far away you live. If you live far enough away that you need a car, you’re probably spending more money on gas than you would on renting nearer to your school. For all your other needs you can use public transportation, ride a bike, walk, or even rollerblade. Having a car requires gas money, insurance, car payments, money for upkeep, and actually takes more of your time when your friends ask for rides than it saves you (like on the 2 minute walk that is now 1 minute of driving and 3 minutes of finding a parking spot).
4. Don’t take classes you don’t need. Set up an appointment with your counselor as soon as you can and figure out exactly what you need to graduate. Sure, if you want to take underwater basket weaving just to dabble, then do it. I took boxing, sailing, and a class on biomechanical theory just for fun. If you want to save money though, cut out the fat. Make sure the classes you take will get you to where you want to be as quickly as possible.
5. Don’t wait to sign up for classes. I have been a victim of this and it’s insanely frustrating to find out all of the classes you want are taken and the only ones you can take to fill the requirement are boring and at 8am. This is a waste of money, time, and your education. Have your schedule laid out prior to the opening of the system and sign up the day (or hour) you’re allowed to access the class system. This will save you a lot of stress and prevent you from wasting money on classes you hate. If you get stuck in the situation where you can’t sign up ahead of time, make sure to e-mail the professor as soon as possible and get some name recognition in case there’s a waiting list.
6. Don’t sign up for the minimum amount of classes you need. This may sound backwards but it helps in the long run. If you sign up for the maximum amount of credits per semester, you can drop any class that you don’t like without having to worry about not being able to get enough classes to fill your schedule. This will save you time and money. For instance, if you have a bad professor, can’t get from one class to another on time, or find out your friend John is taking that class next semester and you want to study together; you can just drop the class, get a refund, and move on with your life. Just make sure you drop the classes you don’t want as soon as possible to get all of your money back or you’ll be slapped with a hefty drop fee.
7. Get a laptop. Ok, so this isn’t a sin, but “Don’t not have a laptop” just sounds dumb. Laptops are a huge time and money saver. Don’t waste your money on notebooks and pencils every semester and for every class. Instead, take notes on your laptop (I know it’s hard, but try not to Facebook too much and actually pay attention) and you will be able to go back and edit easily, print off your notes to study from, and share with your classmates. Finally, it saves on energy since it’s not plugged in 100% of the time like a desktop computer and is portable to coffee shops and the living room so you can still pretend to be social while you’re downloading more episodes of The Office.
I hope you’re able to ward off these sins and live a happy and successful college life while spending that extra money on things you really want. I don’t judge.
Now go own the world.-Ravi Vora
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i don’t know if laptops are a money saver. they usually cost more than a similar desktop, and if you aren’t paying the energy bill, then it doesn’t work out. Also, laptops are generally more expensive to have fixed because they aren’t as DIY friendly for the average computer guy. also, a bunch of notebook and pencils are still cheaper than one printer cartridge. and the reason laptops are more energy efficient isn’t because they ’save’ energy by not being plugged in, but because they usually have better power saving settings and use more efficient processors and other components.
Ryan - Thank you for your comment, you bring up a lot of good points. While I agree with most of what you’re saying, the benefits are significantly increased when you go to a coffee shop with your friends and plug your laptop in. Having the ability to quickly distribute your notes makes the convenience of a printer worthwhile even if the cost of a cartridge is more than a pencil and paper. Many people have actually been losing their penmanship due to computer usage and it is more difficult to read even your own notes sometimes. You may not be able to DIY fix a laptop as easily as a desktop, but for the average college student it isn’t as critical to be able to upgrade and change things. Especially when the convenience and simplicity of a laptop such as an *ahem* Macintosh makes such modifications relatively obsolete (whether we like it or not).
While the reasons for getting a laptop can be varied, I do not commend the idea of purchasing one so you can use it at a coffee shop as Ravi Vora mentioned in the comment above me. This is, after all, an article about saving money and everybody knows coffee from a coffee shop is NOT a method of saving money… especially to a college student.
Usefulid - Haha, too true. Coffee shops are overpriced and will put a hole in your wallet. However, I know that most college students that go to coffee shops to study do so in groups and are not always likely to purchase something. Instead, they are using the free internet and power while they do their schoolwork paperlessly. Saving time and money.
It would be cheaper to get a very good recorder which can be placed almost anywhere and then notes can be taken after the class. Your full attention then can be made in class and perhaps even contribute a new idea in class
frank75riz - Great point. This would be an easy way to stay attentive and get your notes without having to constantly scribble them down, especially if your professor writes with one hand and erases with the other (yeah, I actually had one that did that). However, when I tried doing the recorder thing, I ended up never listening to the tapes. I couldn’t stand the monotonous and boring speeches of my professors a second time so I ended up just borrowing notes. If this works for you, great. If you’re like me, though, I ended up spending more time and money on the recorder than just taking notes I would actually be able to study off of right away.
haha so true. but i’d like to comment on one thing tho.
Laptops are totally useless if you’re taking math and science classes cuz it’s easier to take notes by hand on those classes.
Laptops tend to walk away, which isn’t so cost effective…
Smart makes a good point, it is absolutely critical that you have good physical security and are careful with your laptop. I read somewhere (have no idea if it’s true, but it sounds right) that almost 20% of laptops on college campuses will get stolen, and in the real world almost 10% of ALL laptops get stolen every single year. For $50 a year, it’s worth getting LoJack (http://www.lojackforlaptops.com) as well as getting the best physical security you can afford.
I use a tablet laptop for grad school (MBA). I got a small usb microphone, and it works to record the lecture as I take handwritten notes with Microsoft Onenote. i’m not a Microsoft bigot by any means, but I can click on a piece of text in my notes, and the playback wil continue from what was recorded as I write that! Amazing lifesaver in Stats courses or the like, to hear the prof explain again, what you just wrote in your notes. Highly recommended for all students, graduate or undergrad.
Another thing that might be VERY helpful when it comes to books is to order international editions through sites such as AbeBooks.com. International editions (for the most part) are just paperback versions of US versions. The content is usually 99.9% the same as the US hardback versions. A $100 hardback can be found for like $20 in paperback.
No offense, but I really want to dispel the myth that it’s the college bookstore who’s screwing you over when in actuality it is the publisher. I worked all summer for our college bookstore checking in textbooks and believe me, no one wanted to do it and wished we didn’t have to. College stores only receive about a 5%-10% profit on textbooks, when all other items return a profit of 40% to 60%. The publishers set the retails– we have nothing to do with it. But since it is part of the required duties of bookstores to provide textbooks, they do it year after year anyway. We even ended up selling a book that we LOST money on because it was needed! So who you really should be blaming is the publishers for the textbooks and their profit systems, not the bookstores. Don’t be mean to us! Our jobs already suck!
I agree with Eric Berger - OneNote is one of the best things Microsoft has ever done, and it is truly a student’s best friend. Many of my professors provided copies of their powerpoints on the university website, and with OneNote I could import the powerpoint slides and type notes in right beside the relevant slides. This saved me an absolutely ridiculous amount of time….
It still doesn’t quite make up for Vista, but it least makes a case for a reduced sentence due to good behavior :)
I have to agree with Sara on the bookstores. Moons ago in graduate school, I had that job as well (the temp during rush basically). Not the job one wants to do necessarily in terms of checking in textbooks from students who may or not become bellicose because that book did go down from the 100 bucks they paid to the 4 bucks the powers that be have set for it. It is quite the racket. The bookstores make their little profit on the other stuff (kind of like movie theaters. You know the real money is in the concessions, right?).
Anyhow, I wanted to comment on the dropping classes thing. Here in Texas at least, they recently passed legislation limiting the number of classes you can actually drop. Basically, you can’t drop more than 6 courses, and this does include any classes you transfer. So, for those folks who like to “dabble,” try not to dabble as much. While this is just one state, it may well become a trend to get students to graduate on time. So, as the blogger here points out, do pay attention in classes, plan ahead, cut the fat, and be cost-efficient.
I came here from the Carnival of College bloggers. Best, and keep on blogging.
I like the picture!
All great points.
However I never used my laptop in class. Well, I tried once but it’s much more of a pain than it’s worth. Notebooks don’t have to be booted up. They don’t make profs look at you suspiciously. They don’t freeze up in the middle of class.
And, of course, they don’t get stolen.
If my husband were using his laptop in class—they don’t take 15 minutes to start…
I’m sure for some people they’re useful. And they’re important for other things in college like writing papers in the library or in the student union or with friends or in a coffee shop. Or if you have a class where you really need to play online instead of taking notes.
Hey, I just want to tell you all how my laptop saved my life in a very hard class.. It was a kinda philosophy class and the teacher had a powerpoint, wich she just passed so quick we couldn’t read and meanwhile she was speaking, saying something else, and both messages were importants so my notes were horrible, i couldn’t understand them 2 weeks after.. then i decided to bring my computer in class and it was fantastic, i could write everything and it was clear, so i had a good note and can go back to my notes a semester later because it was actually important thing i learned there, yeah!
that’s it…. and coffeshops DO take all my money… i love too much coffee..
Thanks for the tips it really helps. I’ve been using CampusBooks.com to find all my books and I really like the site. Good luck with classes!
I’d like to dispel the idea of bringing notebooks to most classes simply because it’s annoying listening to the guy next to you click click clack on his keyboard while you’re trying to simultaneously listen to the prof lecture. Even the quietest of keyboards are still annoying to have to hear a lecture over. Note-taking is a double-edged sword anyway, no matter what method you use. When you’re scribbling notes or typing you aren’t absorbing the information, you’re just transmitting it to paper in order to MAYBE look at it later.
Looks like i’m late here :).
Well ….i’d buy an ebook reader (one with a big display and hadwriting enabled): you could save from books and use the device as an “unlimited block note” :).