How I Got Through My Final Year With No Books

Yes, you read the title correctly. My final year of university I didn't purchase a single book. Not one. Why did I do it? Well firstly because I pay for my own school, so the idea of saving a considerable amount of money sounded pretty good to me. I also didn't really feel like I needed to buy any of them. I also just kinda wanted to see if I could do it. And I did.

Every year, I've always purchased all of my books and I've wondered why I did. I've always mostly studied from my notes or even Googled a concept that I didn't understand to get more information on it. Last year, I took it down a notch and bought all of my books but one, and all of the books I bought were used. This year, I took it to another level. I didn't buy one single book. And it feels great. The biggest questions people ask are 1) What were your marks like and 2) How did you do it?

1) My marks weren't bad. Any shortcomings were a result of laziness on my part and I believe had no direct relation to having no textbooks.

2) I did it through two ways: going to class and taking good notes. I've always been a firm believer in going to class. You can learn things just simply through sitting there and if you actively participate you can learn even more. From there, I took great notes. I've always much preferred to study from my notes rather than a textbook. With a textbook, you're reading material that the professor didn't cover and that wasn't on the exam. For me, I found that no professor put anything on the final exam that they didn't talk about in class. So since my class notes were just what the professor talked about, I was set. From there, if I needed to get information on a chapter because I missed a class, I could simply ask a classmate for a note or borrow the textbook from the library. That's another major thing that people forget: a lot of your textbooks are in the library. While you might not want to have to fight to get the book the day before the exam, it can be good if you only need to look up a few things.

I'm certainly not suggesting that everyone try what I did. I'm certain a lot of people cannot buy no books and get the marks I did. Also, with some professors, they'll test you on everything even if they didn't talk about it in class. In this case, buying the textbook would probably be a good idea. All I'm saying is that make sure all the books you are buying are needed. Often people don't even realize that they don't really study from the textbook until they really think about it. All I'm saying: think about it.