Oh my! I just want to make sure you all know I'm not so desperate as to drop out of school. :) I've made it this far and it would take more than a shortfall to get me to quit. That's why I asked for suggestions. Thank you to the people who mentioned the half-price book sites. I think I'll be able to get most of my books at those places and that will free up some cash. I think I can also sell some books and that would be a source of income as well. Good ideas!
I spoke with financial aid and they're going to try to help me get the one scholarship back. Then I called resident life and asked about the RA option. I should hear back within the week.
Try www.bookfinder.com when searching for used books. They aggregate all the major used book sellers to find the lowest total price for a given book.
ReplyDeleteWHEW!!!!!!! SO glad you're hanging in there! :-)
ReplyDeleteI think you'd make a great RA- if you can deal with small children, you can deal with the average dorm resident. (Actually, small children tend to be a little more reasonable.)
ReplyDeleteAnother way to save money - a lot of professors will keep a copy of the textbook they use for their class, available in the library of the school.
ReplyDeleteI would buy the prior edition textbook, at a DRASTICALLY reduced price (compared to the new editions). It's basically the EXACT copy of the new book, sans a few things here and there. I'd supplement anything missing by printing off a few pages from the new edition book in the reserve section of the school library.
Ruth, I just wanted to let you know that you have been a huge inspiration to me in my desicion to go back to school. We are the same age and like you I grew up in a conservative "Christian" household (but not nearly as bad as you, I was just a southern baptist preacher/missionary's daughter). I can identify with a lot with your feelings and emotional hang-ups. I've been kinda stuck these past few years, and really questioning why I was dealt the hand I was dealt, it wasn't until I started reading your blog and seeing that you made deliberate steps in improving your situation that I began to think that I could do the same. I just wanted to say thank you, and you keep at it girl!
ReplyDeleteJenn Y.
professors get free copies of textbooks from the bookstore companies. ask around and you may be able to get books for free.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chegg.com/?referrer=JBUvtO4aiI&link_id=3751&SID=FBCHEGG
ReplyDeleteChegg: a site where you can rent textbooks.
Good for you. College is tough. If you get out with a sheepskin, you've won.
ReplyDeleteCheck out gov't grants. NO pay back! Lots and lots of scholarships out there depending on the field you're choosing. Especially math, special ed, science.
ReplyDeletei agree, definitely check out chegg. you can get books for 80% off and shipping them back is free!
ReplyDeleteAlso- you are the ninja of writing! You can make some bank tutoring a few hours a week. I've done it for about 12 years now- math and science because that's my personal scene, but there are kids who need help. You could rack up some 'experience' in writing at least (don't know what your skill set is all around). You'll have an easier time than most getting students as you're a little older. If you've got area K-12 schools near you, they probably are higher tutors as part of the NCLB compliance efforts.
ReplyDeleteParty on, Ruth!
Campus bookstores are rarely the best place to get the lowest prices on the books. Half.com isn't always the best (and not really half off...), but I find I can get a really good deal a lot of the time. You just gotta know the places online to find book deals.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing to do is just google the ISBN and see what comes up for deals.
I'm glad the financial aid office is helping you out, and I hope ResLife will help out as well! My university picks people in the Spring semester for R.A. positions (it's a class we have to take), but I know it's different everywhere. There may be stuff you can work during the school year, like the dining hall or library, or even the front desk.
Good luck!
Tutoring is a great way to earn extra dinero. I tutored all the way through college, both as a private tutor and as part of my college's career center, which had a reading lab for local school kids.
ReplyDeleteI tutored beginning and advanced level reading, grammar, and BASIC programming (yeah, I'm a dinosaur).
I also earned a LOT of money typing papers for people, or editing them. (I would imagine the editing gig would get you more now, as most kids have computers and type their own.)
I charged 10 cents a page for the typing, if I got the material a week in advance. Or I would do last-minute, emergency typing for $25 an hour. I remember my most lucrative job was an "emergency" 20-page thesis that I typed the night before it was due ... while the client was writing it. He would bring me a handful of pages, and I would type them while he went to write the next section. (We had closed dorms, back in the day.) This went on ALL night --- something like 12 hours of work. But I made $300 for giving up that night's sleep. WELL worth it. :-)
For the editing, I sat down and marked the papers as I would have done were I the professor --- not just spelling, but grammar, punctuation, organization, consistency, logical flow, etc. I then went through the corrections with the client to explain why each was necessary. I charged $10 an hour for the service, or I would quote a package price based on the length of the paper. I earned $500 to $1000 a semester doing this ... and that was back in the late 80s/early 90s.
If you are good at writing papers and catching mistakes or inconsistencies, the typing/editing thing might be an avenue for you to explore.
Wendy, you just took me back to the day. I made my... um... okay, I'll just say it, MY BEER MONEY typing papers for the engineering and business students. You can make a VERY nice chunk of change doing that, especially if you advertise as offering both typing AND editing. Because, as you will find out, those two groups typically need a LOT of editing. (With apologies to those engineers and business-types reading this.)
ReplyDeleteI just have to jump in here... I second the idea of getting grants. See what grants are out there. They're great, since as already mentioned, you don't have to repay them. They're basically free money. I had grants, they paid for about 25% of my college. Talk to your financial aid office for starters, and then hop on Google and see what's out there. Grants rock. :)
ReplyDeleteBy the way, ResLife positions are incredible for personal growth, and also for "resume building". I was an RA for a year and a half, and it was amazing! And the free room and board didn't hurt, either. Additionally, if ResLife doesn't have RA positions available, sometimes there are other positions that are paid, usually secretaries in the head office of the dorm, or something similar.
ReplyDeleteI found your blog a few days ago and backread the entire thing! You are an amazingly strong woman. I've done several things that went against my parents' beliefs, I know how hard it is. Good luck!
Another source for books is Textbooksrus.com
ReplyDeleteIf you can find your book there, it's usually comparable to what you can find on Amazon, and they also buy back.
I'm glad I'm an English major and can pick up a novel for basically the shipping price in many cases. My education minor hasn't used a textbook yet; they use readers and there always a couple copies (sometimes more if it's a super large lecture class) on reserve in the appropriate library.
Good luck with the RA application! A couple of my student friends are RA's and they love it. You can also do it during the summer if you need to make up some units in summer school next year; one friend just hosted a group of exchange students (Korean, Chinese and Eastern Indian) for the first six week session. She said they weren't really interested in studying; they wanted to go to San Francisco, the wine country, Santa Cruz, etc. When she had time, she showed them around (and SHE is from LA).
At any rate, good luck with everything. :)
Do you have any skills in music? I teach at a university music program, and we have a community music school where we have college and grad students who work with students under our supervision. I'm in Early Childhood Music, and we have about as many ed majors as music majors in our program because they're good with young children. As long as they can sing on pitch and follow a lesson plan, it's really not hard to teach the class if you're good with kids.
ReplyDeleteAnother thought-I had a part-time job in undergrad school sitting in the school computer lab, refilling the printers and asking questions. Not only was I able to get most of my homework done at work, but I also picked up some of that aforementioned "I'll pay you to edit my papers" supplement, so I got paid twice. In grad school since I'd had that experience, I got a similar position, only this was considered a Research Assistanceship and came with a tuition waiver and monthly stipend. The only "Research" I assisted with was occasionally pulling together materials for a faculty member. Otherwise, I did my homework and made sure the printers didn't run out of paper.
Check out your city library too. I got most of my books from my town library and on interlibrary loan from other towns. I got the rest from paperbackswap.com. I haven't paid for a textbook in years.
ReplyDeleteOh, good! I'm glad you're making progress! :)
ReplyDeletemy university library had a system called EZBorrow that shipped books out from around the state in less than 5 days, and you got to keep them for three weeks and renew them once.
ReplyDeletethat's what I used to do for all of my textbooks. and at the end of six weeks, I just ILL'd a different copy a week or so before the previous one was due--it inevitably got there just as I was returning the previous one. completely free way of using textbooks for the entire term.
ask your school librarian if you have such a program. I can't think of any university that wouldn't have a good interlibrary loan program, so there should be something like that available for you.
oh, and I forgot to say, since ILLs are generally done through a huge network, they can literally get you anything you want, any edition of a textbook...I even got ultra-rare early-1900s books in foreign languages.
ReplyDeleteif there's anything you've ever been dying to read and never been able to find at any other library, put in the request at your university library. due to your tuition fees, they are networked like crazy. it may be the only time in your life you have complete unrestricted access to any book you ever wanted, ever.
interlibrary loan: use it, love it, abuse it.
love,
i was the head student worker at my uni library for several years, look into jobs there, too. best work ever.
Ruth- you can also rent textbooks from places like Chegg.com. It's pretty cheap compared to even buying them. I really hope you succeed at school- I'm just an anonymous commentator but I really hope you're able to graduate and do what you want with your life! You deserve it. :)
ReplyDelete