<p>My specific question is below, but if anybody has any good suggestions for ways to stretch your dollars, I’m all ears.</p>
<p>Looking at the fee schedule, it seems that you pay per quarter, rather than per unit. Is that right? Do I pay the same fees regardless of how many courses I take?</p>
<p>Thanks for any insights.</p>
<p>for regular school year, yes. same tuition regardless of units or number of classes. although there are instructional enhancement fees, lab equipment fees (if youre taking a lab) and other little fees like that which are charged by unit per class every quarter.</p>
<p>summer sessions you pay by unit.</p>
<p>Ah, good to know. Thanks!</p>
<p>so… make the most of your quarters, try to avoid taking the minimum ;)</p>
<p>also, be prepared, those aforementioned instructional enhancement fees are (i believe) $6 per unit for college of letters and science courses. and they aren’t paid at the same time as tuition. </p>
<p>as far as housing, pick a conservative non-premiere mealplan (although keep in mind 19 non-premiere is cheaper than 14p) and try not to buy food on campus too much. and don’t go overboard buying stuff for your dorm room. buy used textbooks off amazon or half.com and sell them online for the same you paid or heck, even more. avoid ucla bookstore unless absolutely necessary. those are the major ways to save money, the rest just comes from little things like doing two loads of wash and one load of drying for laundry, not eating out a lot, and taking advantage of student discounts.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking – except for my first term, when I want to get a sense of what the workload is going to be like, I’m going push myself a bit and get as many classes as I can without jeopardizing my GPA.</p>
<p>How far in advance should I order books? I’ve tried buying them online before and it took so long for them to arrive.</p>
<p>Definitely looking into the student discounts – which ones have been most useful for you?</p>
<p>WHAT?
paying per quarter rather than unit???
that’s absurd!!
!@#$%^&*()_+</p>
<p>Wait you pay per quarter??? I’m taking Summer Classes this summer to get ahead and I figured in the long run it’d cost the same since I’d end up taking less classes. But now you’re telling me the $3000 I’m paying this Summer will be EXTRA to my Fall/Winter/Quarter tuition??</p>
<p>It’s not really a question of paying by quarter vs year, but a question of whether you pay the same tuition whether you take 2 classes or 4. I’m currently signed up for three classes and was considering not taking a fourth until I feel more confident about having all my study plans in place, but at $3k/quarter, I am tempted to load up on classes, since I don’t pay less tuition if I take fewer courses.</p>
<p>Ideally you should just buy your books as soon as possible if you are ordering online because of possible delays. If the deal is a real bargain you may consider using expedited shipping.</p>
<p>If your books are a little late you may be able to take advantage of the textbook return policy. You can return textbooks for full price if you do it by the end of 2nd week. The stipulation for this is that it has to be in the original condition/packaging so it becomes a problem if the book is in shrink-wrap.</p>
<p>Most useful student discount for me has been for laptops at the UCLA Computer Store. The store has special deals on-top of the standard educational discount but may not be what you are looking for. The deals change every so often so you might want to check out the site to see if the updates interest you.</p>
<p>If you are an engineer you get some access to some free software from Microsoft. The most notable for me was a copy of Windows Vista (Business edition I think).</p>
<p>As stated above you pay per quarter. Take as many classes as you can per quarter and the only thing you lose is your freetime during the school year and maybe your sanity.</p>
<p>
Other valuable programs: Visual Studio (with MSDN libraries if you want), OneNote, Project, and Visio. You can get XP Pro too.</p>
<p>i usually get my books the week before the quarter begins.</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.campusi.com%5DCampusI.com%5B/url”>http://www.campusi.com]CampusI.com[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Yeah, trick is to order textbooks asap, and just buy the books at the bookstore (the used ones work better since u dont need to worry about returning in pristine condition) then just return end of 2nd week. Rmb to return tho.</p>
<p>Hm to the washing suggestion, I’ve found coloured clothes dooo rub off on your whites even in the dryer too, so be careful about that. A nice shirt costs like a year of washing loads. But I just get a nice big basket, and wait until like im literally out of underwear before washing so i can make sure the machines are nice and full. Try to wear a balance of whites and colours too, that way you won’t end up having like 3 machines worth of reds and like one white shirt. Also minimise the times u wash like jeans, since they don’t rllyy have to be washed that often.</p>
<p>Oh if you’re reallllyy skimping, Wooden showers doooo have free soap =P And Free towels! so you don’t have to buy!
And if you’re that badly off, u probably won’t have enough to be stolen to require paying for a locker either =P</p>
<p>I’d suggest selling back at the bookstore but buying online. I’ve found selling on like half.com to be a real hassle, they never rly give u enough to cover postal costs, then after their commision you’re not making more than just selling back to school. Also you could always encounter a prick over the internet who’d claim they never recieved anything. Then you’d lose your money and ur book to boot. The ucla store usually gives you decent amounts back compared to what you paid online.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the tips on books, folks! Very helpful.</p>
<p>so you can return books to UCLA that you bought elsewhere?</p>
<p>interesting, very interesting…</p>
<p>Assuming you aren’t joking I implied using the book bought from the UCLA store until your shipment arrives.</p>
<p>You can use Backbuy on books bought elsewhere though.</p>
<p>Umm yes you can, I’ve been doing that last 2 quarters =P one of my books blatantly had University of Texas in the inside cover and had a differetn barcode rofl</p>
<p>Wow… I bet there are people that steal books all the time to sell… right?</p>
<p>No, they aren’t people, they’re asshairs. Stealing schoolbooks from people who are up to their eyeballs in school debt and trying to learn is horrible.</p>
<p>No it doesn’t =.=‘’ Having Ebay and Craigs list to sell ipods on doesn’t make it more likely that people will steal yours.</p>