Thursday, August 21, 2014

Tips for Upcoming English Majors

August is coming to a close and that means college freshman are buying their first books and packing their college dorm supplies for a brand new semester. Now that I have graduated and completed school, there are many epiphanies that I wish I would have had during my 4 years that would have helped me a lot as an English major. So in order to not let these realizations go to waste, I offer 3 essential must haves come upcoming English majors.

Number 1: Audiobooks! Audiobooks! Audiobooks!
Audiobooks are tools I wish I would have realized and taken advantage of. As an English major, your teachers will assign at least 3 to 5 books per class. That is super challenging, especially when you have all of your other homework to complete from general education classes (which are a waste) to complete. My advice would be to subscribe to some sort of audiobook service like Audible.com or Audiobooks.com. This will make your life less stressful and you will be able to at least keep up with the class…something I failed to do multiple times. Itunes also offers free audiobooks if you look around. They are usually offered as podcasts and a chapter is read every episode.

Number 2: Join a book swapping website.
Do you have a bunch of books lying around at home that you don’t want anymore and can’t seem to sell at garage sales? If not, you will son. When selling back novels at the end of the semester to your school bookstore, your school may not want to offer much but a pretty penny to buy it back. Stretch your dollars with a book swapping website. It is really simple. You list your books, someone claims them and you ship them out. In return, you earn points to put toward other books! It is a great money saver. Sure you have to pay for shipping but you can trade any book for any book. You could trade a $5 book and request a $20 book. This is also a great way to let books live out to their full potential instead of letting them sit at garage sales or get thrown in the trash. The two best book swapping websites are Paperbackswap.com (not limited to paperbacks) and BookMooch.com.

Number 3: Free E-Books
I have never been a fan of E-Books, but free speaks to me…and there are a lot of free E-Books out there for legal download. This is very helpful if you are reading classic books in your class. You can find free E-Books on iTunes and on the Goodreads App. Be sure to take advantage of these free offers!
Those are my 3 tips for English majors. English alum, do you agree with my tips? Disagree? Have more tips to offer? Let me know in the comments!

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