How much money did you spend on books at university?
I’m doing politics at Lancaster university and I’m not sure how much money I can expect to spend on books at university in my first year.
Original post by Anonymous
I’m doing politics at Lancaster university and I’m not sure how much money I can expect to spend on books at university in my first year.
Pretty sure most uni's have free ebooks you can access now
Original post by Anonymous
I’m doing politics at Lancaster university and I’m not sure how much money I can expect to spend on books at university in my first year.
Honestly don't even bother spending money on books at uni. 99% of the time it'll be a waste and you'd get more than enough mileage out of the copies in the library. Of all the books I've bought for uni I think only one I felt I legitimately used enough to be worth the cost (and it was not enormously expensive anyway).
Possible exception is, depending on your subject, Schaum's outlines books which are fairly cheap and cheerful and often have lots of example problems/questions to work through usually with solutions, so can be particularly useful for exam preparation and such, although I wouldn't necessarily suggest buying these at the start of the course.
Original post by Anonymous
I’m doing politics at Lancaster university and I’m not sure how much money I can expect to spend on books at university in my first year.
Hi,
With the cost of living I understand why a lot of people are hesitant to buy first year textbooks. I did not buy any for my first year and came out with a first. (I bought one but it was massively discounted as someone in my area was selling it on Facebook Marketplace). I would say to wait a few weeks into your modules to decide if it would be more worthwhile to purchase a textbook.
Some ways you could get access to your reading material:
Library - most textbooks will be available to you in the library (as mentioned in previous responses). Be sure to return the book on time.
Check out groupchats and Facebook - You might find alumni and second year students selling their textbooks for a cheaper price.
Online - For some older textbooks that are recommended you might be able to find pdfs online. I would just search the textbook name into google and it will probably come up. This is what I did and I found it very helpful! I could highlight the book on my laptop and search for keywords (very helpful when it came to citing things for essays).
I hope this helps and good luck!
Alia
University of Kent Student Rep
Original post by Gazpacho.
£60 on a first year textbook the university told us we needed to buy. I rarely opened it.
I still use it to wedge open doors as I'm determine to get some use out of it.
I still use it to wedge open doors as I'm determine to get some use out of it.
Hi @Gazpacho.,
Have you considered selling yours to first year students or donate it to your nearest university or local library? If you don't know how to go about selling your textbook, consider contacting the university as they might have a system or an event where first years can buy second hand textbooks.
It can be very frustrating purchasing an expensive textbook and not ever actually using it. A door stop is a great use once you are done with it!
Alia
University of Kent Student Rep
Original post by Anonymous
I’m doing politics at Lancaster university and I’m not sure how much money I can expect to spend on books at university in my first year.
Hi Anon,
I'm a biochemistry student at Lancaster and I spent nothing on books during my time at university. My department provided me with an online textbook and extracts from articles linked on the course pages and the Lancaster library has so many online and physical resources that I never needed to buy anything.
There may be someone on this account who is studying a more relevant degree and can give you more information, or you could reach out to a students on Unibuddy to ask? (https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/study/chat/)
I hope I could help!
Rebecca (Lancaster Student Ambassador)
Hi Anon,
I am in my third year of studies now and to date I've only had to purchase one textbook and it was for an optional module that wasn't part of my main course for £20, and I later found it was accessible online for free anyway (woops!) It's likely that you don't need to purchase any textbooks, though of course I can't offer insight into their necessity as part of a politics degree. As others have said, even if you do need to use textbooks over the course of your studies your university library will likely have the books you need, and if not most universities offer resources to get the books for free as eBooks or PDFs.
If you do discover that purchasing textbooks is necessary I would urge you to seek out places like eBay or Facebook student groups where you will likely be able to pick them up for much cheaper than you would buying them from retailers.
Hope this helps,
Courtney H
I am in my third year of studies now and to date I've only had to purchase one textbook and it was for an optional module that wasn't part of my main course for £20, and I later found it was accessible online for free anyway (woops!) It's likely that you don't need to purchase any textbooks, though of course I can't offer insight into their necessity as part of a politics degree. As others have said, even if you do need to use textbooks over the course of your studies your university library will likely have the books you need, and if not most universities offer resources to get the books for free as eBooks or PDFs.
If you do discover that purchasing textbooks is necessary I would urge you to seek out places like eBay or Facebook student groups where you will likely be able to pick them up for much cheaper than you would buying them from retailers.
Hope this helps,
Courtney H
Original post by Lancaster Student Ambassador
Hi Anon,
I'm a biochemistry student at Lancaster and I spent nothing on books during my time at university. My department provided me with an online textbook and extracts from articles linked on the course pages and the Lancaster library has so many online and physical resources that I never needed to buy anything.
There may be someone on this account who is studying a more relevant degree and can give you more information, or you could reach out to a students on Unibuddy to ask? (https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/study/chat/)
I hope I could help!
Rebecca (Lancaster Student Ambassador)
I'm a biochemistry student at Lancaster and I spent nothing on books during my time at university. My department provided me with an online textbook and extracts from articles linked on the course pages and the Lancaster library has so many online and physical resources that I never needed to buy anything.
There may be someone on this account who is studying a more relevant degree and can give you more information, or you could reach out to a students on Unibuddy to ask? (https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/study/chat/)
I hope I could help!
Rebecca (Lancaster Student Ambassador)
Hi,
I'm just going to follow up on this response. My name is Emmanuel. I've just graduated with a Joint Honours degree in History & Politics at Lancaster University and I'm about to study a Master's in Politics there too. In my experience, I never had to buy a single book. Most of the resources that you would need for seminars and lectures will be uploaded to Moodle (our Student Portal) or OneSearch (resource database great for journal articles, ebooks, and references for physical copies of books in our Library). Additionally, if you require a resource for coursework, research, or even just individual engagement and interest, you can request resources from the Library using an online form rather than buying with your own money. To do my dissertation and other 3rd year coursework, I requested well in excess of 50 resources and they pretty much all turned up within 2 or 3 days of request. The Library can even request other institutions to lend books and material temporarily to you if that helps. In short, I'd hold fire on buying anything.
Mine all seem to be available through the uni library portal, and we get access to several PDF's, e-books/textbooks, documentaries for free
Original post by Anonymous
I’m doing politics at Lancaster university and I’m not sure how much money I can expect to spend on books at university in my first year.
Hi
Most of the books you need will be available in the library or even as a Ebook. When i started i only bought the book on references as i know i would need this book through my whole degree at uni with all the other books just being borrowed from library or as a Ebook.
Good luck with your degree
Emma
UCLAN student Ambassador
All the books I've needed have been provided by the uni, either physically at the library or online editions.
Original post by Anonymous
I’m doing politics at Lancaster university and I’m not sure how much money I can expect to spend on books at university in my first year.
Hi Anon,
Similar to what has already been said, but I'm going into my 3rd year studying Geography and I've never had to buy a book at university. The universities library has an online portal called one search where you can find almost every textbook or journal article you could ever want, or if you find on a rare occasion they don't have a book which you want, you can request it and they will usually send you a copy in a few days. If there's a textbook you know you really want a hardcopy version of, it might be worth looking at the Don't Ditch it stall in Alexander square during freshers week as they usually sell textbooks that other students have donated for cheap prices.
Hope this helps!
- Jasmine (Lancaster Student Ambassador)
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