Do you keep your college textbooks?

[Master-Classter]

I collect dust with mine... they're quite effective!

 

[Joffrey]

I was always very quick to resell mine at the end of the semester. I still own a few novels I had to read for history and literature classes.

 

[Tarmac]

I only keep the ones I will peruse once in a while. Art books, fiction books, or books I really enjoyed.

Everything else I sold. Books which you never use are a huge waste, especially if you have to move them.

If you own your own house already (how could you? you just graduated) then maybe you can justify filling your bookshelf with them, though.

 

[jhao]

yes, but i'm a lawyer and check the book for basics things now and then, and because I have a huge bookshelf and without them it would look all empty.

 

[DNW]

I have nothing from undergrad. I am keeping the good law books that I used for class, but mainly for the notes that I wrote on the margins.

 

[mishon]

Donated all my undergrad and law books to a local library. Only kept 2 books: The Bluebook and Legal Writing by Design.

 

[erbs]

I usually sell my science texts, but I keep most of the philosophy/lit books.

 

[goodlife]

As others have said it rally depends on your field. I kept all the books from classes in my major (history) and a few others I found particularly interesting (novels and anthologies from Lit. and texts for Art History). Being in grad. school a few have come in handy. Even the American History textbooks, which are mostly useless civics propaganda, are good for the occasional map.

 

[acidboy]

Still have some here, staring at me, from the time I graduated in '92. Haven't even opened them again eversince.

 

[mendozavr]

Originally Posted by Jodum5

I was always very quick to resell mine at the end of the semester. I still own a few novels I had to read for history and literature classes.

Apart from those books you keep for reference, reselling right away is the best way to go since most textbooks tend to depreciate rapidly. If you need the book again, you can always re-buy it used for a lower price from from Half.com or Amazon.

 

[Fade to Black]

at the end of every year in college, i carried bags and bags of notes, essays, tests to the recycling room and got rid of all of it. Then I sold whatever books i had, sometimes still in their original wrapper for whatever i could get. i basically walked out of there with nothing but my diploma.

 

[Jared]

I kept a fair number of them that I assumed would come in handy as a reference. Now they're in boxes at my parents' place on the other side of town. Therefore, whenever I need a reference I check if I can find the same information online before I go to the trouble of finding the book. So far nothing has come up that required getting the book.

 

[Eagle]

I did including most of my research papers and five copies of my graduate thesis, for about 30 years and then...gave (bound) copy of the thesis to each of our grown children and threw the rest out. Boy, did that feel good!

 

[chiral]

I keep most of my core texts because I find myself referencing them all the time. Organic + physical chem, advanced instrumental design, analytical methods, etc.

 

[Honstu]

I always resell my textbooks as I have found that there was no real use in keeping them, however I still have a whole stack of notes I keep for future referencing.