How To Write A Resume LIKE A BOSS

how i spent only $34 to purchase $1,000+ worth of school supplies for college

One thing I’ve found that many college freshmen do is they purchase everything at the school bookstore, shelling out more than $800 for what they think is the cheapest deal possible. Let me tell you now, that you’re doin’ it wrong if you think paying hundreds of dollars is the best you can do. 

To put it into perspective, for this past year, if I purchased all of my required textbooks from my school book store I would have had to pay $1,466 (tax not included)–and this is the total calculated if I bought used textbooks only. If I wanted brand new textbooks, it would have been over $2,000 (tax not included). In the end, I only spent $34 to purchase an entire year’s worth of supplies (that’s a 97% discount!!!), and I will tell you how. Of course, how low you can go will depend on the type of textbooks your professors require you to have and if you need any online access codes.

1. Email your professors

A lot of professors receive compensation from publishing companies to include their books in the curriculum, so many professors will say a book is required when in reality, you probably read 4 paragraphs from that text in the course of a semester. Always e-mail your professors beforehand about the list of required texts and other required items so see how many times you really need that book or item.

For example, at the beginning of fall semester last year, one of the required items listed for lab was lab cartridges which cost $88. Before making the decision on whether to purchase that or not, I e-mailed the lab coordinator and asked about what the cartridges were, which labs they corresponded to, and how often we would need to use them. The response? We didn’t need them at all for lab. If I didn’t ask my professor about it beforehand, I could have potentially paid $88 for something I didn’t need. 

2. Join your school’s Facebook network.

Most, if not all, colleges will have a network on Facebook. Whenever you get your admission e-mail, or in your school’s portal, there should be a link to join the main Facebook group. Through there, once you’re accepted, you should be able to access many other Facebook groups within the school network. Many colleges will have a group dedicated to students who are selling their old stuff, and many will sell their textbooks on there as well.

Freshman year, I paid $150 for my general chemistry textbook, the solutions manual to the chemistry textbook, general biology textbook, lab manual, lab goggles, and clicker by purchasing them from a student who took those courses already and had no use for them anymore. To put into perspective how much I saved, the general biology textbook itself retailed for $150 in the campus bookstore; and the total amount I would have had to pay if I purchased all those books from the bookstore would have been more than $560. I basically purchased this at a 75% discount! 

I would consider that purchasing from students at your university is generally a safe transaction, as most people meet up on campus to exchange the cash for the product, but remember to always exercise caution. You can always ask the seller to send you more detailed pictures if you want to know more about the condition of the item, and most of the time, you can also try to haggle the price of the item down. 

3. Try to find online PDFs

One of the biggest reasons why I was able to save so much money this year with my textbooks was because of online PDFs (bless those uploaders). I was able to download my organic chemistry textbook and solutions manual, and molecular cell biology textbook online for free. If I had to purchase them from the campus bookstore, I would have had to pay $917. That’s a lot of money I saved!

Generally speaking, textbook versions don’t really vary much. For the organic chemistry PDF I mentioned, I actually found the previous edition of the one we were required to have for the course. I e-mailed my professor and asked if there was any particular difference between the 3rd and 4th edition, and he responded saying that other than the fact that some content in one chapter was moved to the next, there was no difference, and there really wasn’t. Even the chapter problems were the exact same. 

If you’re the style that likes to have a paper copy in their hands, you can always print out the PDFs. 

4. Share with friends

As a biology major, we have many labs, and for those labs, we’re required to purchase a lab manual. This past year, I took orgo lab, and the lab manual for that was $143. I couldn’t find this online as a PDF because A) it was the newest edition for this year, and B) it was written by our lab coordinator so it couldn’t be found anywhere else. So I chose option C instead: share with a friend. One of my friends compared the previous year’s edition with the edition we were required to have to see if there were any big differences (such as different experiments), and there weren’t really, so she purchased last year’s lab manual from an upperclassman for $25 (I paid $12 since we were sharing). Since we had lab on different days, we were able to share the manual. 

I also made scans of the manual as well so I wouldn’t hog it when she needed it to complete her conclusions, and she could use the scans for her pre-lab while I was using it to write my conclusions.

5. Don’t buy, rent instead

If you absolutely have to have a book and you can’t find it online as a PDF, see if you can rent it instead. Although your campus bookstore will also have rental prices, 3rd party rental prices are almost always cheaper. Two sites I highly recommend are Chegg and Bookbyte. Although I haven’t used Chegg personally, many of my friends do and they say Chegg’s prices are lower. I’ve personally used Bookbyte, and although their selection is a tad smaller than Chegg, they have great customer service. In addition, if you need your rental for a couple days past the rental date, you can send it back late (up to 12 days I believe) without being charged any additional fees or paying for an extension. 

For example, if I were to rent the anthropology textbook from my bookstore would have costed $40, and renting from Amazon would have cost $35, however, Bookbyte had my anthropology textbook listed for $12 to rent. They actually sent me 2 copies of it (I was only charged for one), and both were in excellent condition. When the time comes for you to return your textbooks, just print out the pre-paid shipping label Bookbyte sends you and you can ship the book from your campus mailroom.

6. Ask upperclassmen

Second semester this year, I was able to get my hands on a hard copy of the newest edition of the orgo textbook and solutions manual for free, because one of my upperclassmen friends passed it down to me without asking me to pay, so she’s basically the nicest person ever. You can always ask upperclassmen friends first for textbooks and such if they’re the same major as you because chances are, they’ll still have their old textbooks and would most likely be much more willing to help out a friend than a student they don’t know. 

7. DON’T BUY “USED” ONLINE ACCESS CODES

The only thing you cannot get a discount on are online access codes. Any sites that are selling “used” online access codes are fake, and you should not purchase from them. Online access codes are associated with specific professors and courses, and e-mails as well. In addition, most have a set expiration date (usually a year or a semester), so any “used” online access code will most likely have expired by the time you try to use it. 

What I usually do if I have to have an online code is accept their free trial. Companies such as McGraw Hill’s Connect have a 2 week free trial, and since my professors put up all the assignments in advance, I complete all the assignments within the free trial period. When the free trial expires, I can’t access the module again unless I pay, but the records of me completing my assignment still exist and I still get my homework points. I was lucky enough that our professor assigned online HW as easy gimme points, so I didn’t have to wait until he taught the material to finish it. The only online homework I paid for was Sapling, which was $10 since the free trial was only 6 days and homework assignments were uploaded weekly. 

hi chelsea!! i'm an undergrad student right now, considering a career in academia. my adviser and all my professors tell me i have a lot of potential and i love the idea of spending my life teaching and doing research, but i've read so many horror stories about people trying to find & keep jobs and eventually leaving academia. i was wondering if you had any insight or advice, maybe even places where i could find a more positive & encouraging (but still realistic) perspective. thank u!!

i’m not sure i’m in a great place to answer this for you! the realistic picture is just… not encouraging. finding someone who’ll say “of course you’re going to get a job!” might make you feel better temporarily, but that person is lying to you, and the lie is going to come back around and hurt worse in five years or so. 

in other words, the horror stories are ubiquitous because the experience is ubiquitous (and tbh, though quit lit has def blossomed over the last few years, there’s still a far greater number of people leaving academia than are represented in those accounts–many people see leaving as “washing out” or admitting defeat, and don’t talk about their decisions to go). 

this is not to say that you shouldn’t go into academia. but as i tell my own mentees, you should not go into academia with the expectation of getting a job at the end. i went into grad school because i liked doing the work, and because i did some self-assessment and concluded that even if i didn’t leave six years later with a tenure-track teaching job, i wouldn’t regret taking the time & doing the work to get the doctorate. then i sat down and had a little chat with myself two-ish years ago and decided that yes, i was going to Go For It, which has meant avoiding quit lit for my own mental health and focusing on the positives (your professors! those are the extant examples of people who got the kind of research & teaching job you want!). asking your advisors about this directly is a great place to start; you can also read karen kelsky’s the professor is in, which i’ve mentioned here a few times, for a fairly realistic description of what the market is like at the moment. 

26.12.20 / i wore this knit cardigan yesterday and got reminded of fuminori nakamura’s books on account of the red color. i highly recommend his books if you’re into crime fiction. anyway, how’s your saturday? i hope the holiday season has been kind to you this year ♡

Below is a list of tumblrs who do research! Interdisciplinary researchers might be listed more than once!

Biology

almondsofjoy (Entomology)

baysided (Biophysics)

blissfullyawareof (Molecular Biology, Genetics)

callstheadventurescience (Evolutionary Biology & Ecology)

cozyenzymes (Biochemistry)

eatsleepsciencerepeat (Microbiology, Cancer Bio)

iseeagirl (Behavioral/Social Neuroscience, Psychopharmacology)

jewishdragon (Cancer Biology)

onetwothreemany (Soundscape/Amphibian Ecology)

philosonista (Sociology of STEM, Neurobiology)

the-soul-of-requirement (Organic/Biochemistry)

Chemistry

caffeinatedcraziness (Analytical & Atmospheric Chemistry)

chemislife (Organic Chemistry)

cozyenzymes (Biochemistry)

elementalbaker (Environmental Chemistry)

hexaneandheels (Nuclear Physics/Chemistry)

miss-megan-rose (Geochemistry)

siliconandstardust (Materials/Inorganic Chemistry)

the-soul-of-requirement (Organic/Biochemistry)

zinathewarriorchemist (Biochemistry, Structural Biology)

Engineering

lifeandtimesofindigostar (Materials Science, Metallurgy)

siliconandstardust (Materials/Inorganic Chemistry)

thispr0blemchild (Materials Science)

Humanities

euphoricrambles (Education & Learning Science)

protagonistanormal (Spanish Literature & Culture)

Physics

autodidactic-tiger-cub (Quantum/Modern Physics, Lasers/Optics)

baysided (Biophysics)

hexaneandheels (Nuclear Physics/Chemistry)

studyingphysics (High Energy Astrophysics)

thatphysicsguy (Computational Astrophysics)

Psychology

kitty-wine (Clinical Psychology)

Sociology

philosonista (Sociology of STEM, Neurobiology)

If you want to be added to this directory, just send me a message! See the full directory here!

Some melodies have soul in them, don't they? What you listen to in instrumental music or classics that has the same feeling? I absolutely loved Petricor that you recommended.

Oh, I do.

Beethoven, Für EliseTwo Steps from Hell, Big SkyDebussy, Clair de LuneChopin, Nocturne op 9 n°2Bedrich Smetana, VltavaLudovico Einaudi, ErosLudovico Einaudi, DivenireLudovico Einaudi, PrimaveraLudovico Einaudi, NefeliPhilip Glass, DuetErik Satie, GnossiennesDario Marianelli, Dance With MeDario Marianelli, AtonementDario Marianelli, Cee, You and TeaClint Mansell, Lose YourselfTom Tykwer, The EscapeTom Tykwer, Cloud Atlas FinaleYann Tiersen, Summer 78Hans Zimmer, Cornfield ChaseJohn Wasson, CaravanTchaikovsky, Dance of the SwansTchaikovsky, Waltz of the FlowersProkofiev, Dance of the KnightsCraig Armstrong, OpeningAdolphe Adam, Dance of the WillisPhilip Glass, Morning PassagesZoe Conway, Half Day RoadJoe Hisaishi, Dragon BoyMartin Phipps, Saint PetersburgEmile Pandolfi, Once Upon a December

etc.

Literally do your work as soon as you know it exists. If you get homework, do it during your free or when you get home or on the train if you really want to, on the day you get it. Just got set an assignment? Get the draft done that weekend. It doesn’t have to be amazing and absolutely ready to send in, it just needs to exist. Just got sent an email? Reply when you see it. If you’re not sure how to response to it, write Dear (), leave a gap and then write Regards () and keep that in your drafts. Set a reminder on your computer or write the reminder on a sticky note that you’ve got that sitting in your drafts and you need to send it off in the next 24 hours. Need to clean your room? Don’t spend time thinking or planning how you’re going to clean it or how you’re going to change up the space in the process, just pick stuff up and put it where it should be until everything’s in order. Done. Seriously dude, when a task arises as an issue, tackle it as soon as you realise it exists. Remember, it doesn’t need to be amazing it just needs to be done. So, when the due date of the task creeps closer, you can go back, work with what you have and make it the quality you want it to be. 

I kind of wish that the idea that you can just be was a little more mainstream.

Like, having drive and ambition is great. But it gets drilled in kids’ heads that there is some pressure to constantly be looking for the next move up, to be bigger than life. It wears you down to never be satisfied.

Not everyone is destined for greatness. It just doesn’t suit some people.

There’s nothing wrong with having a quiet life, making enough to get by, having a small apartment where you’re comfortable, and just living. You don’t have to constantly be looking to go onward and upwards. Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to just be.

Hey! Im thinking of doing computer science in uni next year and I wanted to know if my computer will be sufficient? Got any recs?

Hi there! While I am a huge tech nerd, and would love to recommend cool devices for your use during your degree, I honestly think that most of the basic laptops are sufficient to complete a Computer Science degree. The flashy added features are mainly for aesthetic and are mildly time saving. You are rarely actually going to build projects that make use of all of your excessive RAM space or multithreading capabilities. The most of your degree is just going to be pulling up PDF’s and using your internet browsers. A lot of schools allow remote connection to stronger servers if you need a heftier processing power anyway. All that being said, here are my top tips when deciding on a device for your Computer Science degree: 

Focus on battery life and keyboard comfort (for your hand size and typing style). You are going to be typing a lot, and you don’t want your device dying on you randomly in class. *shudders in lost code* 

Invest in the largest solid state drive (SSD) that you can afford. Avoid hard drives as internal storage. Please. Your computer will constantly scream if you don’t. SSD’s are so much faster.

Good screen quality helps, especially if you play games and watch videos on your device like I do

Invest in an external monitor (or two!). The extra real estate is a life saver when coding, as you can pull up documentation, stack overflow, and multiple tabs in your IDE all at once. Really helps optimize your workflow

If your thirsty for cool tech, a dedicated GPU helps (but it will hike up your price a lot). It mostly comes in use if you are doing a lot of video editing, gaming, animation, machine learning or data science tasks. Don't really need it otherwise

If you try and get a good deal on a setup that provides most of the above, you'll be golden. Don’t stress too much! You don’t spend as much time on your computer in this degree then you think you might. 

Psychology is crazy overwhelming but so interesting. I wish I could major in such a fascinating field but I need something that I can obtain more connection and success with. This is one of the subjects where my motivation and organization skills are on point, I hope I can feel this passion with other subjects. (IG POST)