What I Wish I Knew Before College

You finished your college search and finally made it to what you were told would be the best four years of your life. Among the stress of finishing homework and rushing to meet deadlines, it’s easy to forget some of the opportunities that college affords you. Instead of trying to survive credit to credit, semester to semester, here are four tips to enhance your experience. 1. Go to Class & Talk to Professors

College Textbook Mythbusters

With your final college preparations looming as spring moves into summer, a painful cost is about to enter your reality: college textbooks. I started SlugBooks.com because I wanted to make it easier for college students to save money on their textbooks; there are a lot of misconceptions at the beginning of college about the cost of textbooks and the cheapest places to get them. Here’s a list of common textbook-buying myths and our rebuttals to help give you a better understanding of the process and how to maximize your savings! MYTH: “If you have financial aid, you always need to buy books from the campus bookstore!” Wrong! Just because you received a loan doesn’t mean you have to overpay for textbooks. Many forms of financial aid allow you to get reimbursed if you provide proof of payment (like a receipt from Amazon). If your book is $100 at the bookstore [...]

Digital Bookbags

Last week, Elizabeth’s post about books that mattered in college was a poignant review of the lasting impression of books: both in our minds and in the groove cut into our shoulder from increasingly heavy over-the-shoulder book bags. While nothing will ever replace the tactile sensation of thumbing through hundreds of highlighted pages, e-books are here to stay, whether librarians like it or not. Fortunately, physical book-loving culture is alive and well in the world, so the advent of digital texts doesn’t seem to be obliterating page-turning just yet. A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education discussed a new state law requiring that all post-secondary education textbooks be digitized by 2010. (Post-secondary education = all education after high school.) While not affecting the existence of tree-made textbooks, the law will force publishers to ensure that all of their material is available electronically. College textbooks are expensive. In fact, textbooks [...]