Comments on: Start College Off Right (Part 4)

By: Ray@ZenCollegeLife

Ray@ZenCollegeLife — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:18:31 +0000

Never buy new Books!!!!!!

Don’t do it ever. The only money I got for books was a $50 B&Noble Gift Voucher and I ended up using that all on reading outside my major. I signed up to the city library as well as the college libraries and ended up spending exactly $0 on books the whole year and still managed to do better than others who had spent hundreds of dollars buying all the books on the reading list brand new and rarely touching them. I’d would have thought that the general mindset was ‘man, I’ve spent all this money on these books I’ve GOT to read them’ but no…

In fact I use this rule for all books in general, not just college ones. Unless its a book you’ve eagerly been anticipating just wait a while and before you know it the book will be on Amazon or something like that for a third of the price

By: Eric

Eric — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 19:40:37 +0000

Completely agree with this advice. The one piece of advise that I wish I had payed attention to is the one about talking to your professors. I found myself wishing I had when I started looking for undergraduate research opportunities in the Spring. It doesn’t matter whether your the smartest person in the class if the professor doesn’t know your name.

By: Carlos

Carlos — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 08:05:17 +0000

Great list! Makes me wish I had read it before college.

Carloss last blog post at [site] was..New Semester, Used Books

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:25:10 +0000

Thanks for the advice – we freshmen aprecciate it more than you know

By: Jenn

Jenn — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 06:52:40 +0000

I’ve been lurking here for a while, but when I saw the photo you were using here I had to de-lurk and laugh because I almost used that photo in a presentation I gave today. Great tips – to that i would add “get a campus job”. It’s nice to have some spending money. Also – you might want to credit the photographer whose photo you’re using: http://flickr.com/photos/ole/2694692511/

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:11:29 +0000

Personally I never bought books until after the first day of class. I ran into problems where they would list books for a class, I’d buy them, then we’d never use them… waste of money.

And I agree, DON’T choose a major up front, get all your Gen Eds out of the way as fast as you can. Unless you’re 100% sure you know what you want to do, I would highly recommend staying away from a major for at least your first year. I switched majors 4 times and I also switched schools 3 times, so in order for me to graduate in 4 years I had to work my ass off to make up for lost credits that wouldn’t transfer between majors/schools. I also saved a lot of money by taking most of my Gen Eds at a community college and transfering them in to the university.

Oh yeah, and don’t room with friends your freshman year. It might be fun at first, but it’ll suck in the end. Meet new people or you won’t enjoy your stay there.

By: ProductivityScience

ProductivityScience — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:55:09 +0000

Nice advise: “Never buy new books”.
Some books are useful only when new, for example, from computer sciences.
So, my version: “Buy new books wisely”.

By: farahk

farahk — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:32:57 +0000

so true. if only i had read this when i first left for college…