Finals Redux, And Why Text Books Are A Racket
By Patrick Flynn So, I write this fairly intellectual piece on standardizing video conferencing tech over 3G cell phones for a class. Turns out I got in such a hurry, I forgot to save it. (Bah) I printed it and got it turned in, but in all of Microsoft’s wonderful Office glory, I forgot to save the sucker! Oh well, I’m sure my self grandeur wasn’t event worth the time of copying and pasting for your eyes to scroll over. Finals is over (only five more terms!) and the repeating, severely masochistic pain of returning textbooks returns. So exactly why is it that when I buy over $700 worth of books and guides (not to mention a $105 non-returnable dvd set, grrrrr) that only ten weeks later I get $100 back? I could rant for hours on this anger, this Tony Sopranoish money laundering scheme that is out to screw our future economic leaders? For those who may not privileged enough to attend a college or university within the last 15 years, here’s the trimesterly run-around. Student gets class list. On said list, prof or instructor lists texts and whatnot required for the class. For an average full-time student, especially one in upper division classes, one can expect to pay $500 plus. After using maybe half of the books a student bought ( I have had classes where I didn’t even open the book) you can usually expect that half of you book won’t even be bought back because a “new version” has come out. This usually means that the publisher changed some pictures and captions, yay. And the books they do buy back, I can expect maybe %40 of the original price, I know the bookstores side, buy low sell high, but c’mon. According to maketextbooksaffordable.com publishers have to keep up with the ever changing demands of educators, and new discoveries in academia…….Bunk. I understand that it is very expensive to publish a 600 page book with full color pics and in a large format, and in some cases with a hardcover for durability. But wait, what does a person do if they want to cut publishing costs, and it allows for dynamic editing and can maintain academic standards, duh, digital media, that’s how. A publisher could easily fit a whole text book on a CD or DVD, or even for download via PDF file or some other locked format…. you want the latest version? Pay a “upgrade fee” or some such thing, and boom, the “book” is updated. Not that no-one has come up with this idea before, and in some cases, some publishers are doing this, or instructors will gather their own material and bundle it on the cheap for students. But its just like the RIAA, only text publishers don’t go Scarface on its customer base, trying to destroy them while saying “buy our stuff”.If you at all are concerned about this, or have some sort of dog in the fight. Til next time. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patrick_Flynn http://EzineArticles.com/?Finals-Redux,-And-Why-Text-Books-Are-A-Racket&id=501435 buy phentermine online ky online pharmacies for phentermine phentermine without a dr prescription websites to buy phentermine
