Why is it that textbooks for the lowest level classes tend to cost more than those for higher-level classes? Here I am with only two classes this semester, one of which is a lab that has no book required, and I naïvely thought that I'd be able to save some money on books. Hah! For my Anthropology 121 class I have two books that are at least strongly recommended, one of which costs $72, and the other $128. I mean, my upper-level advanced physics books usually cost less than that. Is this some sort of pecuniary test to weed out those financially incapable of paying early on? (Oh, wait, maybe it's just a way to promote student debt from an early age.)
All that aside, it looks as if I'll be enjoying my classes this semester. My Anthropology class is Introduction to Language, and looks to be quite fascinating. And my lab is the Observational Astronomy lab, taught by the new director of the 0.9-meter Hōkū Keʻa telescope for students, so we'll get to visit that at some point. The second half of the semester will be mostly taken up by us learning how to go through an observation run from initial proposal to final data analysis, so that should be interesting and informative as well. All in all it looks to be a fairly easy final semester for me, a welcome change from last semester.
Good heavens! My most expensive one was 118 for English Grammar, which wasn't too surprising. But those Anthropology books aren't even very big! (At least, mine aren't.)
ReplyDeleteAnd at least you'll be done with textbooks soon! :) Well, until grad school...