Today I would like to take a look at another way in which the world has changed since I was in college the first time around.
Half.com is a subsidiary of Ebay where you can buy textbooks online for a fraction of what they would cost new. I found out about this from the professor in one of my classes this semester. What you do is this: Go to your college bookstore and make a note of all the books that will be required in your classes for the next semester. Be sure to make a note of the ISBN numbers. Then go to Half.com. Click on “Textbook Superstore” and it will bring up a window where you can search for your books by ISBN number. Enter the ISBN numbers of your books, and it will bring up the books. Then you buy them. It’s that simple.
But here’s the rub. It usually takes about a week or two for the books to ship by standard media mail (I am assuming that if you are interested in this you would be using standard media mail, because college students are usually looking to save money in any way they can.) So you need to be sure to order your books for the upcoming term as close to the end of the present term as you can; that way you will have your books in time for the start of classes.
I ordered all my books for the upcoming fall semester through Half.com. When it was all said and done, after all the shipping charges and everything, I wound up saving about five dollars over what I would have paid if I had gotten used editions at the bookstore. Enough to buy one gallon of gas in some parts of the country. But as a college student, you don’t turn your nose up at any amount of money that you can save.
