Back to School: Textbooks and School Supplies

  
     Textbooks are quite expensive, but needed essentials to the semester. These are your main source of information for most classes. Although you do get the occasional professor who says you'll need it, but never uses it. So you have to buy this thing in most cases. The first thing I do when back to school starts is log on to my campus book store to see what textbooks I'll need. And its no surprise that all the books are very expensive. Now my first year I didn't know much and bought all my books from the bookstore. Well I soon realized that I didn't HAVE  to buy from my campus bookstore. There are TONS of online textbook shops that sell the books for half the price. Which is what I do. After looking to see the books I'll need , I copy the ISBN numbers to a sticky not on my desktop. Then I go to my fav. textbook site. Slugbooks.com

This site is great you put in what book you need and it compares the prices from a few different sites. This way you're finding the cheapest price you can get. I use the site every semester and have literally have gotten half-priced books! The money you save can be used to buy all the other much needed supplies you'd need.

Now as much as you need textbooks you also need pens, paper, and pencils. Of course everyone has their own preference of brands on stationary so I won't talk about that but I'd like to list some of the essentials that I've found useful to have over the semesters.

1) First is an agenda. You'd be surprised how fast you can forget about an assignment when it's just written in your notes. I love keeping an agenda and having all my assignments in one place. I have tried not using one and the semester went south real fast. So this is highly recommended.

2) Writing utensils, of course you'll need these, even if you use a laptop for notes. I always have at least one professor say no laptops. So it's handy to have pens and pencils. Mainly pencils, I always buy a large pack of mechanical pencils so I have them for both semesters of the year. There's always those scan-trons for mid-term and finals. And getting mechanical pencils with .9mm lead works. I however don't stop at pencils. I always keep pens and markers of every color on me at all times. Whether it's for color coding my agenda or studying my notes I love seeing all that color.

3) Notebooks and binders. You need paper if your hand writing your notes. How you do that whether notebooks or loose leaf is all a matter of preference. It's just something you need.

4) Highlighters, sticky notes, and flags. The reasons are endless, but a main one is to study. I mean that's why your at school right?

5) Jump drives. Or thumb-drives, no matter what you call it it's always good to keep your papers saved to a jump drive. Saving your work in multiple places saves you the trouble if you forget to print at home.

This is just some of the supplies that you can get your hands on, but it's also the supplies I use every semester. I've tried multiple supplies and ways to organize those supplies and I've finally found the ones that work for me. If you have any other supplies that I didn't mention that is a staple in your back pack let me know in the comment section below.