Three hour wait for textbooks
by Redfokker on Sep.16, 2009, under Non Traditional Journey
Perhaps the economy is the blame, but I spent all morning in line at my community college bookstore. This was the first day that books were on sale and everyone was out to get the used (cheaper) books. I didn’t think for a minute that there would be a crazy long line. I spent too much time in the morning surfing the net, (looking at all the non traditional student sites….) and went over to campus about 9:30am. The line to get into the LBCC bookstore snaked around the commons three deep! I should have just bagged it for the day and shopped online, but I wanted to experience the queue for blogging purposes. Yes, dear readers, I sacrificed my entire morning just so you would have a feel for what non traditionals are up against. I finally made it into the bookstore after being in line for 2 1/2 hours. All of my books were available, and I was able to get the majority of them as used books. My total book bill this term was $128.00……woo hooo!!! This will be about the cheapest I’ll get away with for the rest of my college experience.
In my community college in Oregon, they have a record number of new students this fall term. Unemployment in the Albany, Oregon area is up to 16% and I think this is reflective of the increase in college enrollment. I have not done any research about other areas in the country, but my suspicion is that Oregon is not alone. The class schedules are full across the catalog. I was looking to pick up an extra 3 credit class in Research Writing and was amazed at the full classes. I am on a waiting list for this class. If I do not get into it, oh well… I was smart and did my registrations for fall term back in July when they first opened. I plan on doing some digging to find out how the statistics rack up as far as the number of Non Traditional Students in Linn Benton Community College this term. I realize that community colleges would have a tendency toward more non trads due to vocational and retraining type curriculums. Other institutions of higher learning will have different statistics. Quick!!……to google and away!!
2 comments for this entry:
September 23rd, 2009 on 12:04 pm
Sheesh, my son’s books for fall term were over a thousand. There are programs where you can rent textbooks, (newsstory here), http://www.nbcdfw.com/around-town/shopping/Cant-Afford-Text-Books-Rent-Them.html , but the books that are available are mostly freshman books.
October 30th, 2009 on 10:29 am
Hey, this might not help with all your books, but try to contact instructors before the term starts (when and if you can) and find out what books s/he is using. Then you can order on the internet. For sites, google “college textbooks” or something similar.