<p>I would recommend you wait at least a few weeks into the semester before buying books. My first semester I didn’t buy a single book and still did ok, and my second I bought 3 (out of the dozen or so I was supposed to have), because the syllabi were all “YOU WILL BE EXPECTED TO KNOW ALL THE MATERIAL COVERED IN THE READINGS FOR THE TESTS NO EXCEPTIONS, OH AND YOU SHOULD BE READING A GOOD 30 PAGES A NIGHT HERE’S A LIST OF WHAT YOU NEED TO HAVE READ FOR EACH AND EVERY CLASS PERIOD” used two of them once (for about 15 minutes) and one of them not at all, and sold them back for a fraction the buying price (having bought them at a fraction of retail to begin with). Did pretty well there too. You really don’t need them.</p>
<p>And if you find you absolutely cannot stand to go on without the books, you can always ask a friend to borrow theirs for an afternoon and photocopy all the relevant pages in the library. Dunno how much it costs but it’s probably not too bad, and if even <em>that’s</em> not cheap enough just scan them into a digital format and print them out on your own. Hell, steal the paper from the library’s supply if you want, reducing costs further. A $200 book now costs pennies (and even if you diligently read everything assigned you’ll rarely use half the book). Also, check the torrents, they might be available there.</p>
<p>You have time to wait. If you can get them for $2-3, you might as well (especially if they’re ones you can sell back for $15. Could turn a tidy profit there, though I hope to be there the day you haul forth a wheelbarrow full of books to the people working bookbuy).</p>