Just Sixteen More...

Just sixteen more credits and I will get my degree. It has been a long work in progress and tomorrow I will complete another class. The class I will be completing is Western Civilizations I. I will be taking Macroeconomics for the term starting on 19 October. Until then, I will enjoy my time between classes.

One thing I think would make education more financially feasible for most people is the use of ebooks. I am not sure why academic publishers have not jumped on the technology bandwagon and published textbooks in traditional and digitized form, but I am hoping some of them get the message. For example, my next textbook will cost two hundred dollars. That does not include shipping.

Assuming that my next six classes require books that cost two hundred dollars apiece, I would be spending twelve-hundred dollars on books alone! And of course, that would take a huge amount of money out of a person's financial aid. Given the fact that financial aid is mostly comprised of packages a person has to pay back, why not give students something that would work a little better for their budget?

The benefits would ripple out to so many areas, more students graduating with less debt, the environment would not have to lose so many trees, less people would have any kind of lumbar issues, and publishers could really exploit this business model for profit. Everybody wins!

Oh, and professors would no longer have to dread people not having their books on the first day of class...

What do you think?

Suspense and Hope

My grades came in for the last essay I submitted. It was not as high as I hoped it would be, but it was better than the first essay I submitted and still an A. For people who think I am crazy for complaining about an A, let me explain how my school's grading system works: Each assignment is given a point value. At the start of each semester, you find the point value for the course. These point values are later translated into your final grade. So, higher points that come closest to equaling the total given in the syllabus for the course equal a higher final grade.