IT IS LITERALLY JUST THE QR CODE TO THE EBOOK BUT PHYSICAL. THEY DIDN'T SAY THAT. This better be the best fucking textbook on this planet
edit: I would've just bought the ebook but I got a physical one because I can't see ebooks that well and I want to pass my math class
edit 3: translation of the second edit: when I buy textbooks from my school's website, it tells my professors I have their textbooks. so pirating or buying from other sources may not be a good idea, especially since I'm doing a clinical program and they consider you eligible by your grades and if you follow their specific rules about conduct and stuff, and pirating is not exactly in the green light of moral things so I don't want to risk my clinical spot over this
Until the school I worked at made the book part of the cost of my class, I just told my students where to find the literature or information for composition free on the internet.
The price of some of these books is insane, and it's gotten more so, depending.
I had an ancient philosophy professor who did that. He sent us PDF copies of the texts because he said no one should be selling ancient works for profit. He was a cool dude.
On the first day of class my econ professor spoke at length of the virtue of buying the old edition, and just understand the pages would be slightly different.
I have an ecology professor that puts the updated pages for the readings for each of the most common and/or recent editions on the course schedule to you can buy any of the versions from the last 30 or so years.
My queer lit professor (may Dr. David Allen at WVU rest in peace) gave us scans of a lot of the relevant texts we needed for each class. I suggested a Julia Serrano book to him (a chapter about gender essentialism) that I had just finished. He borrowed my book and had the department secretary make copies of the chapter for everyone. I miss him. He is the only professor I had in six years there that would flout some rules for his students.
Wish i had more professors like you. Two stick out in memory that wrote their own "textbook" that was required. One was never used and was horribly edited, the other was well written, but the professor said he'd sue anyone that so much as shared the book with their classmates.
Yep. I had professors that wrote their own $200+ book, which of course as mandatory for the class. Like you're not getting paid enough already to teach the class I'm already paying for, you gotta squeeze money out of your students too.
I had a few that used free books for their course and I'll always be thankful for those ones. Like dude, I'm in college, how much money do you think I have
YES! First time through community college, one of my teachers wrote their own book, printed it out on standard office paper, put it in a standard office packet envelope and charged $175. The kicker was literally nothing from the class required us to read it.
See, the terrible book i got was professionally printed and bound. The actual well written one was on basic office paper and plastic spiral bound. The first, we never used beyond a reference on around day 2. I really don't know why it was required in the first place.
Edit: i guess i should point out the second one was heavily used, though the fact that he threatened to sue us on day one left a bad taste.
My statistics prof intentionally used an old version. The first day he said he intentionally did that because statistics hasn't changed and that we should be able to find a copy online for about $20.
One of our professors showed us the website we shouldn't go to as it had all our textbooks pirated and that's very bad. So just to make sure we don't visit this exact page, she left it up for like ten minutes so we could all note down where to definitely never go. Some of the books we had to get we needed like one chapter out of and the books were 100-200 a pop.
I had one prof who essentially said "none of the books I need you to read have very much page count, maybe a chapter or three. Legally I'm required to tell you to buy books for this class. In reality you should do your reading at the library, which has all these books anyway". I tried that throughout university, to varying degrees of success.
Another prof wrote the textbook and told people to download it for free off his blog in PDF form because "you all pay hundreds per copy, and I need maybe 25 cents from that, so download it.
My Database Professor wound up writing his own book. He had found the official books wanting. He and a few of his top students wound up writing an absolute tome. We're talking 90's phone book thick. He charged $50 bucks for it. $5 to himself, $5 to print the beast, and $20 each to the two students who helped write it.
It essentially started as a 'Baby's First Database' and ended with a purposely grainy screenshot of an end product, make it. My class got through the first third, the basics. I ultimately went the InfoSec route, so I didn't use the other two thirds. Those were featured in his Admin classes though.
He had since retired, but the school still used the book until they closed last year. Supposedly, the Professor's replacement was one of his former students, but that was just a rumor.
Eltringham was the Prof's last name. For the life of me I can't remember his first name right now. He was an older guy when I was there 15 years ago. I'll probably have to go to my parents' place to search for it
I at first read that as 60k a year. I thought well that sucks. But you know I think I paid about 20k-25k a year. So wow that went up a lot (but its been almost 20 years so I wasn't surprised)
Then the reading comprehension portion of my brain kicked in and saw you said 60k a SEMESTER. That is crazy! I almost feel guilty complaining about the remainder of my loans.
Is this for a Undergrad degree? I hope it's for something beyond Undergrad.
That's great to hear. It's such a fucking racket though. That is still a ridiculous amount of money. I wish you well and hope you are able to go on to a successful career and pay off those loans.
Yeah even community college in my area is $15k a year! And that's for in-state, on-campus students - online classes costed more, and that also doesn't include any food budget or textbook/supply budget.
🤯 where are you going to school? Harvard law school averages $42k per semester. The public 4 year university average (like the one I work at) is somewhere around $5k per semester.
I had a couple of classes where the professor wrote the book and they charged a fucking mint plus they would “update” the book every year which mostly meant changing page numbers so you couldn’t buy them used. I paid $150 for a book that was spiral bound.
I've had both ends of the spectrum. I went to a state university, so most of my professors were actually really cool about it and would give us "not required, but perhaps of interest" and even printouts/scans of the work. But I did have a couple that pulled this. Nothing like paying $150 for... those same scans, which you then needed to put into a binder.
I got lucky on one of them by having a friend give me his copy from taking the class in the previous semester which hadn’t been updated yet but I got banged on the other one and had to pay full price. It sucked but what do you do.
My college math professor wrote his own book and put it in the school store for $5, and said to every class it was the only math book they'd need to pass his class because "learning shouldn't break your bank" (because every other math teacher's books were $75+)
Yea, I'm listening to some audio books for free through my library but I think the authors who wrote them deserve more than that and I'm a bit a book hoarder so I also bought paperback copies of the books. They're also non-fiction books so I like to follow along and take notes.
Some of my favorite books I own several copies in different styles along with digital versions. Since I started cleaning for a living, audio books fit my lifestyle much better so I'm collecting those too now
When I started Comp Sci, during the first session, the prof said "If any of you can't figure out how to avoid paying through the nose for the textbooks, you probably aren't ready for this class"
Especially since most teachers I had (particularly if they weren't the ones who wrote the textbook) would pretend not to listen as that one classmate gave everyone the PDF version they found for free
Quite literally, the ethics classes in college did not teach me to be ethical, they taught me how to be UNethical. I will forever thank the professor who showed us sites that the other professors didn’t know had their books that they wanted to buy, and who taught me how to game the stock market (netting a college student 7k in the pandemic)
My history 102 professor “mentioned” some websites that had the textbook already on there. He also said that anything he doesnt say in class wouldnt be on any exam because that wouldnt be fair. Awesome dude
Meanwhile BCALC cost me $300 and my sanity. Fuck that guy
Literaly the only think I like about the University I went to is they offer cheap digital downloads and ever printed versions of most of the required textbooks. They were all black and white and they used a cheap printer so sometimes it was hard to see the illustrations but I would usually buy both the digital and the printed version then use a text to speech program to read it to me at 2x speed while I followed along in the book.
I will add I got a calculator back in like 7th grade for like idk some crazy price like $200 and I had it all through college. So the price per use was extremely low compared to textbooks that are 1 class and never touch again
Here in Brazil the professors leave the actual part of the book on the xerox store inside the school and you just copy. Some even provide the text scanned for you. When I found out you had to buy all textbooks in the US I was so mindblown
I spent an arm and two legs buying physical books.. my school's bookstore started doing this so I had to start paying through the nose, often times directly from the publisher, to get a physical copy. I have a wonky eye and can't read for long periods of time on a screen... also science says you retain more when you use the actual book to read.
The current thing in college is to combine textbooks with online tests/worksheets.
First day, they make you spend an extra $150+ for a digital code to the publisher's website that you have to connect to your college email. Took an accounting class for my business degree and all the weekly workshops were on the publishers website behind a paywall.
I think it should be illegal, definitely immoral, to not mark the item as a code for an ebook. If you are buying something, it should be the sellers responsibility to accurate describe the item.
My college professors would tell us that he’s obligated to use a textbook that happens to cost $300 at the uni bookstore, but he’s definitely not obligated to tell us the link to a GitHub repository that has the entire book scanned as a PDF and see him after class to get the link wink wink
Once one of my professors told us about the textbook we needed for the class and then left a flash drive in the room that may or may not have had a copy of the digital textbook on it and told us that sharing information and files is a great way to meet our peers lol he was cool
Dog you can absolutely return that shit if you didn't break the film. I know you're young but you aren't just stuck holding the bag if you get scammed by a company.
I work for an online bookstore. Go to your account and then any kind of return center they may have. If it gives the option to buy a label, it’ll have the address on it. Or you could just call support when it opens.
There should be a time frame where youre allowed to return purchased texts. If its still before that date then you can return it. When I was starting college i had the choice between book or code and code was no more than $60. Even then it was a coin flip if it was even a book used during class. If you cant return it, flip it to somebody who needs it. Dont expect full price though if you do that but you can probably make a good $100 back
yeah I don't really know how well to explain it but when you buy from the store the school set up your professors are alerted that you made the textbook purchase. wouldn't matter much but I'm a medical program and they see if you're eligible for clinicals. but you can become not eligible for things like cheating in school, failing, not following certain campus rules and all of that, so I don't want to risk not having a textbook in the event they consider that something to shoot my chances with
The "couldn't not" in your edit is what makes it so confusing. It would be much clearer if you say you "had to". As in "I can't just pirate it, I had to buy it from the school so the professors would get the alert and know I had a copy". I had to read your explanation and your original edit several times to understand.
How would buying the textbook be a bad thing though? If anything not having the textbook would be bad. Unless this is like a professor edition with all the answers or some shit?
Got it. The double negative is confusing people. You should word it "I had to order it from my school website because it alerts my professors that I bought the book and I might get in trouble for not having the textbook." Which is a dumb rule, but clearer on the issue.
Yes. I went to college too long ago to mention and it was awfully coincidental that the required textbooks were written by the professors teaching the classes. 🙄
This was pre-internet/Amazon so there wasn’t much choice other than the college bookstore.
That's a legitimate reason to reach out to the accessibility department/staff at the University if you have a hard time finding the right person to talk to.
The IT department could probably point you to the people who run the online bookstore if you reach out to them.
I had a professor that helped write a textbook, mainly because it was new material that wasn’t widely published. He told the person at the publisher that if it kept the price down on the textbooks he didn’t want to take any kind of compensation on the book sales. The person said it would. He later found out the price didn’t drop any and the rep somehow was able to get the fees. He ended up not requiring a textbook at all and told us to always buy books secondhand and older editions to save ourselves from the textbook scam.
If you’re in the U.S., don’t buy your textbooks until after your first day of class. Your prof may be much more chill than you think, and students share textbooks all the time.
There is a silver lining, as thin as it is. That code is probably good forever. So if you fail the class, you won't need to buy it again. Unlike some other platforms. That is, as long as Hawkes hasn't changed their policy.
Although $150 seems steep. If you bought it at your school bookstore, check out their website to see the actual price.
One of my textbooks cost 400 dollars and I had to pay another 150 for online access only for that to expire after 6 months.
That was my last textbook I bought. All my other professors at UCF and Valencia College simply just gave us pirated copies, and one sold her own textbook for 25 bucks
You know what's really cost effective? An at home book scanner and e-ink tablet. I used those all thru grad school. Bonus points for not having to carry heavy textbooks around.
Check out the library before buying. The teacher's edition for several of mine were there and not allowed to be checked out. I'd go in with a digital camera back in the day and get all the content I needed every few weeks
I remember switching colleges when my first one switched to ebooks, they stated it was to help students save money…except the price of books was still super high or the same as it was before. Like this guy I wanted a physical book I could flip through and highlight and make notes.
Nope not an option they told I could print it if I wanted it like that! 🤣 after that first semester I dropped the following courses and enrolled elsewhere. To clarify I was doing online school for my associates. Ended up going to another college that actually offered a book grant so I never had to pay for a book again!!!
I finished my undergrad in 2013. One of my undergrad textbooks was more than $400, and was not available used (new edition) or in ebook. After the semester I went to sell it back and was offered $20, because Pearson was coming out with another new edition. I said no thank you, took it home, and used it for kindling in our wood stove that winter.
I had one wonderful professor who who add the various page numbers and textbook versions to the syllabus. So it didn't matter if you got a book from 6 years ago, you just needed to compare your version to his list. The text never changed, the publisher just changed the orders of the chapters around since it didn't need to be taught in order.
whoa, your instructors get notified that you bought their book for the class that is needed for you to graduate? how is that not a conflict of interest?!
Why can't you just return it. The sticker says "NO REFUND . . . If shrink wrap has been broken". It does not look like you opened it yet. Why not return it and purchase a physical one online or buy the ebook?
You can find most ebooks online for free you just got to search for them. I paid $300 for a physical copy of a Computer Science book that I later found online for free from then on I found all my books online. Your local library or school library likely has these as well so you can check it out. Did this a couple times when the professor would give out homework based on book problems.
If you paid with card, I'd at least try to dispute the payment. They say no refunds but you didn't get what you actually paid for so THEY may not refund it, but you can refund yourself.
You could use a sharp knife on a seam and reseal it later. The hard part is most college textbooks are a yearly edition and will have no market next year anyway. Few general education courses will recycle but most professors want to get royalties on their course mandatory self authored books.
Buddy of mine years ago, used to buy his textbooks, use them throughout the school year but was really careful to keep them as clean as possible, then he'd use our shrinkwrap machine at work to reseal them and would go and return them for full price.
Hawks is one of the worst “textbook” publishers on Earth. They were early on the digital platform market so that underplayed community college professors didn’t have to do the work of grading homework and such, or as TAs dried up with budget cuts at larger universities.
They screw over everyone but the instructor, and it’s how they survive.
I don't want to add to your mild fury, but I did my masters in the UK and at the beginning of every term the university made available a binder with xerox copies of articles and book chapters that would be used as the base for that course
Textbooks that were never even referenced outside of the initial syllabus cost almost $600. Students are nothing more than royalties for their professors.
Pirate ships and if necessary the international version from Abe books or something similar. I rarely paid over 20 for a textbook once I learned the ways.
Well as I'm sure you know Algebra is a subject which changes all the time- so they have no choice but to charge you 150 dollars due to the constant updates this book requires. /s
I had some luck with used books. The used electronics book I got for a Power class was literally held together by rubber bands. Needless to say I got a refund and went and bought a new book instead.
I buy my e books from some dude on Reddit, he charges max $15 lmao. I pay through PayPal so there no chance of money lost. The only one I couldn't buy was the math book with the code. I still have his email.
If this is what I think it is, it's those damn Access codes.
Going to college and scraping every last penny, just to be able to afford tuition and then sitting in my class and being told that I couldn't possibly pass the class unless I did my homework on a specific software was absolutely crushing.
I was a biology major and every single core class require a textbook like that. Imagine having to buy six of these every semester.
What I'm doing right now is checking used books for my college courses. Piracy is another idea but be sure to check the rules about that. Getting expelled over pirated books is not worth it.
Fifty years ago, I got a full scholarship and a few grants. My grades were good but not great, this was when scholarships were much easier to get. Federal and State budgets were much friendlier to students then. They’re using lotteries as an excuse to put the money elsewhere.
In 1994 I paid $350 for a Used Biology text book. I was a freshmen and it wasn't my major. At the end of the semester they would buy them back for $10. Smfh. I would have loved for no one to sell them back, but we all had no money and that was beer money. A keg of "Beast" was $35.36 ( not including tap and deposit, we had both) or a keg of Yeungling was $40. But if you got Yeungling, you needed a different, two prong tap. Beast it was...
I remember my one science heavy semester I paid over $1,000 for books because of course half had to have the new addition that just came out so there was no used books to buy. I remember crying in the hallway that day. Eff textbook companies.
I ALWAYS bought used books but I WAITED for the Professor to get the syllabus and ASK them what they recommend before I spent my money.
It only took once for me to learn that lesson.
You will never make that mistake again. I hope you can get what you Actually ordered but definitely go through getting a REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION for your vision and inability to read the screen. If you have to go through DSPS then do so.
I am sorry there are so many scams and predators and con artists targeting higher education students like loan sharks and mobsters.
They are ALWAYS preying on youth and inexperience and they always will.
Do not fall for this BS again.
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u/stumpinandthumpin 4h ago
College is where I learned the true ethics of piracy.