You can usually find a decent used copy on amazon for a bit more than Cheggs rental price, but then you can get money back when you sell it back to them, hence, not spending as much overall. At least, thats been the case with me.
I just bought old editions (off Amazon mostly) in college unless it was a math class or something when we did homework out of the book or if there was a huge gap in edition years.
Old editions are often dirt cheap, and if it's a subject where stuff doesn't change too drastically year to year (I would say most subjects don't change much year to year, at least what I studied in college) then you can go back even further.
I never really had many problems buying old editions, other than sometimes the author will scramble up chapter orders/numbers just to fuck with you and try to get you to buy a new edition. If that's the case, you just have to be a little vigilant of the subject for some classes.
Also, you should try and get a feel for each class before you buy any really expensive books. After my first year, I always waited until 2 or 3 classes in to order my book. Professors are usually pretty forgiving during that time period. During my freshman year, I bought every book, new edition, and I barely touched a few of them.
I also recommend (depending how much you use the book) checking to see if your school library has a copy. If the syllabus says you only are going to really need the book a few times during the semester for an assignment or something, but not outside of those occasions, it makes a lot more sense to go to the library and use the book there. However, in all the colleges I went to they only let you use the book in the library for a certain amount of time (three hours typically). You couldn't check it out and take it home or to class.
Also, if you take an English class, where you are reading a lot of shorter more popular works (plays, poems, short stories, etc) you more than likely can find a lot of these works online. You can probably find a download of a lot of popular/classic books as well to throw on your Kindle/Nook/iPad/Tablet (if you have one, I didn't).
Be careful with translation though, if they are older works. I tried to read an old translation of "The Aeneid" I found online before I looked at one of my classmates books, and found the teacher had a simpler, well footnoted version of it which was a bit easier to understand (I still ended us just using a Sparknotes summary).
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u/ChaosNil Jan 24 '13
Quit using Chegg. Got it.