Do you have to buy books for your course at Uni?

Or can you just borrow them from a library? I'm really worried about finances when I go to Uni next year, I haven' found a job yet to start saving.

Reply 1

Dopamine Dreams

Depends on your course. I studied Law and spent a hell of a lot of money on books every year, the Library had a fair few copies of the most common books but there were ~300 students on my course so you really needed your own copy.

My brother studied Computer Science and bought 1 book. He got a first.

I didn't.

Wounded.

Reply 2

lozzielizzie

I had to buy books as it's better too have them then as resources for future.

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Reply 3

Hedgeman49

I did maths and bought two books, both of which were compulsory in first year.

One of them could be taken into the exam so was kinda useful, ish. The other one I used as a doorstop.

Reply 4

nic-nac

For my course, there's 2 textbooks which are deemed 'essential' which we need all year round. The rest are suggested reading and we don't need to read every chapter, so the lecturers said we can get away with just borrowing them from the library as and when we need them.

Reply 5

username1221160

I've found buying textbooks to be a lot less necessary than universities make out. It's possible to repeatedly get textbooks out on long library loans, depending on their demand/numbers available.

Now, many of the best selling textbooks are available as pdfs online.

Reply 6

moutonfou

Even if you do have to buy them you can usually buy a cheap used copy online rather than buy it new in the uni bookshop. Yes it's nice to have a shiny new copy but once the course is over you've got a room full of books that you don't want but also can't bring yourself to give away/throw away because you spent £300+ on them!

Reply 7

amongsttheweeds

No, I'm with the OU. :awesome:

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Reply 8

moutonfou

P.S. always check before buying a book that it's not available on Google Books because not only is it free it's also searchable!! which is way better than spending an hour buried in a paper book trying to remember where you found that awesome quote.

Reply 9

Juichiro

Original post by Dopamine Dreams

Boss!

Reply 10

emski

depends on the course and the library.. some courses require more books than others and it depends if it is on an ebook in the library or the number of paperback copies they have

Reply 11

Theflyingbarney

As everyone else has said, depends on the course really. Some subjects (often science-related ones) will have a couple of central texts with all the core knowledge that it's worth buying and then use libraries for the more peripheral or specialised stuff. For Law there tends to be one or two central textbooks that cover everything for each topic, plus statute books, all of which you really need to buy so you can end up dropping over £200 a year. On the flipside, some of my friends doing History and the like have lived entirely out of the library because they need to read so many different, niche books.

As a general rule of thumb, the more people there are doing your course and the more comprehensive the textbooks tend to be, the more you stand to gain by buying them.

Reply 12

Manitude

Bought two books as an undergraduate, downloaded several more.
As a postgraduate I've bought two, though only actually used one of them, which makes the other one a waste of money so far.

Reply 13

Ruffiio

I had to buy 2 books for £20 once on Amazon because someone already took them out of the library.

Reply 14

natninja

Original post by lokalokaloka

Or can you just borrow them from a library? I'm really worried about finances when I go to Uni next year, I haven' found a job yet to start saving.

You should be able to borrow them from a uni library (unless all the copies are already out... and this does happen...)

Or to put it another way, my christmas wish list consists of mainly books for my course...