Originally Posted by
eofelis
Do you really need to take all the textbooks with you everyday? In most of my classes I don't need the textbook for lecture time. It stayed home for homework.
Can you take part of the text book at a time? If you are not planning on selling the books back, how about some home surgery on those books? I have a Calculus text book that is used in my college for 3 classes: Calc I, Calc II and Calc III. I cut mine apart, into 3 sections, at the chapters that are used for each class. I used some mylar for new covers and some packing tape to cover the glued binding, and just took a thin part of the textbook to class each day. Other students asked me where I got the thin textbook!
Also, for binders I use the 1 inch ring ones with thin flexible heavy plastic covers, instead of the big ones with the thick covers. Takes up less space in my pack. I can add and delete notes as time goes by and keep my commuting load light. I use a separate binder for each class. Some of them are left home on some days.
I really like your idea of surgically altering textbooks. No, I probably won't have to have the textbooks for class every day, but I don't want to plan that way and then one day all my profs become hard-core. I've had a few. I will probably do most of my studying at the library instead of home, because it forces me to do things ahead of time instead of starting midnight before its due, bad habit. It was nice last semester because the big Calculus book was available to checkout at the library, but I'm done with Cal3 now. I bought flexible binders for my upcoming classes, those thick ones fell apart on me anyway.