QUEEN’S ROAD: With colleges reopening, many students are using unconventional ways to get their hands on their textbooks.
Some are downloading select chapters from the Net while others are banking on their seniors. Passing on used books is a tradition in many colleges coming under Bangalore University. Some students sell the books for half the price and use the money to buy a fresh set of books.
“After my exams are done, I usually give away my books to juniors. They are more useful to them than to me. I don’t charge them money,” said Jyothi Priya, a BCA student from KLE College, Rajajinagar.
It’s cheaper to buy from seniors than from stores, of course. Students also feel hand-me-down textbooks come with added advantages.
Helpful notes
“The notes jotted down in the margins make the subject easy to follow, and it feels like our seniors are guiding us with their experience,” said Shantanu Kumar, another BCA student. Whenever the books are given for free — sometimes he buys them at 40 per cent of the original price — he returns them at the end of the semester.
Books hard to find
Anand Krishnappa, a BSc student, passes on the books he gets from his seniors to his juniors. Borrowing or photocopying a book becomes inevitable when university-prescribed books, especially literature and language texts, aren’t easily available.
Jasmine Pinto, a BA student at Seshadripuram College, said, “I borrow books from my seniors as most texts are not available in the market. Of course, studying from a senior’s books makes the lessons easier to understand.”
BBM student Kuldeep M Kothari says books for some subjects aren’t available at the stores till mid-semester. “So rather than wait till then, I borrow books from my friends,” he explained.
Naveen Kumar, also studying in Seshadripuram College, keeps his juniors in mind when he is sitting in class. “I make key notes in textbooks to help my juniors,” he said.
When colleges help
The borrowing-lending culture doesn’t exist in autonomous colleges, however. The syllabus often changes, and lecturers provide students with most of their reading material.
“We have reference books in our college library and we also get notes from our teachers. So there is really no need for us to borrow books,” said Bhanu Priya, a student at St Joseph’s College of Arts and Science, Langford Road.
