By 
Textbooks are an expensive and often necessary part of taking classes each semester. Undergraduates usually have to buy books for topics they won’t revisit during their academic careers. This causes many students to have books that aren’t useful to them that had cost a lot to purchase. Rather than keeping these textbooks on a shelf to gather dust, consider these great ways to get rid of them at the end of the semester.
Table of Contents
Donate to a Library
Libraries often don’t have the books to fully supply the student populace. Donating books can help them have more available resources for students to use during the year. Textbooks are often updated every few years with the new version being much more expensive than previous editions. Students are still able to learn a lot about a subject from referencing any modern version of the textbook.
Recycle
Hardcover textbooks can be bulky with hundreds of pages of information and pictures. They’re often larger than regular novels and take up a lot of shelf space. A great way to be environmentally friendly while cleaning out a dorm is to recycle textbooks. Don’t throw away used workbooks or lab textbooks that are filled out. Recycling can reuse that paper material to make more books in the future.
Sell to a Buyback Program
Many students have to pay hundreds of dollars for a textbook that’s helpful to them for a handful of months. This extravagant cost weighs heavily on a college student’s budget and can take out of their necessary grocery or bill money. Buyback programs can cut down textbook costs by offering great prices for used books that the program then sells to other students in need. This process allows students to make back some of the money they might need to buy more books later.
Give to Friends
Undergraduate classes often have open registration like combined freshmen and sophomore classes. It’s easy to make younger friends in classes or while living in the dormitories. These friends might need the same textbooks later on in their studies. Giving away old textbooks is an alternative way of getting rid of them that saves time and protects a friend from a big future cost. Ask around dorm friends to see if anyone has a similar class scheduled for next semester who could benefit from a used textbook.
Utilize Them Creatively
It’s possible during the semester that a student may take many notes in the margins of their textbooks and not want to recycle them or give them to a friend. There are many ways to creatively use a textbook so it continues to fulfill a purpose after it’s been used. Textbooks can be used for many art and craft pieces like collages and scrapbooks. They can also be hollowed out to keep items inside. From cutting up the pages and pictures to utilizing the entire book in its original form, students can use their textbooks to test their creative minds and spirits to create lifelong art and decorative dorm pieces.
Don’t let old textbooks sit and clutter up bookshelves when they’re no longer useful. Make room for new classes by recycling, selling to a buyback program, or giving a textbook to a friend in need.
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