Back in the high school days, there was a certain aspect of purchasing fresh school supplies in September that sent us a rush of excitement.
That was before college.
One of the biggest nuisances of going to college is buying books for the new semester. While purchasing a pack of new number two pencils is one thing, shelling out for an organic chemistry textbook at full price is a whole other issue. With the little amount of used books at the Hopkins bookstore, those who don't buy their books earlier get stuck with full prices.
Buying from the bookstore can easily cost up to $700, not to mention the long lines during the first week of classes.
The most veteran Hopkins students will tell you to avoid buying full-priced books at all costs. With new advances in used schoolbook services online, the Internet offers cheap prices in the most efficient and convenient manner.
Direct Textbook (http://www.dir ecttextbook.com/) and Campusbooks (http://www. campusbooks.com/) are two of the many Web sites that have become the jumping off point for any savvy college student looking for a bargain. Just by entering a textbook's ISBN number, they will bring up the prices, including shipping costs, of many different textbook suppliers on the Internet. The list includes the most popular ones such as eBay, Amazon and half.com as well as some lesser-known Web sites Abebooks, TextbooksNow and PhatCampus.com.
Another alternative is looking for postings on Daily Jolt, the student-run network of college Web sites. Upon entering into http://jhu.dailyjolt.com/, students can click into the Marketplace link and scroll through the various textbook postings from Hopkins students. This allows students to negotiate prices themselves. Best of all, there is no shipping cost because exchanges can all be easily done on campus.
Before you go off to buy your orgo textbook, check out what the Internet has to offer, and save the extra money for a Friday night.
