Bankstown B.A Texts and Traditions 2009 Spring Session, EXPENSIVE TEXTBOOKS (1 Viewer)

[bryandawn]

I will be doing this unit 100968 at Bankstown next semester, the spring session, and so I checked on connect books website the textbook list, and to my utter surprise, the total price for all the books is a whopping $218.95, eight books to read.

What is unfair is, prior to next semester, the students who did this unit at Penrith only needed to spend 41.11 for their textbooks for this particular unit. This is completely unfair and unreasonable.

I have sent an email to Professor Nancy Wright nancy.wright@uws.edu.au, made a complaint to her. As below:

Dear Professor Nancy Wright

I am a first year student doing combined Bachelor of Laws/Bachelor of Arts, and I do my Arts component at Bankstown campus; I was just checking the textbook list for the unit Texts and Traditions 100968, at Textbooks Ordering and to my utter surprise, the number of textbooks required and the total price is shocking!

The total price for all the books added up together is 218.95 dollars, compared to the Autumn session which has just finished in Penrith, the students there only needed to read a few books at the total cost of 41.11 dollars.

The price difference is 177.84 dollars, over 4 times the total price for the students who did this unit at Penrith campus merely a session before us. I find this change of reading materials and especially the price completely unacceptable. Also because we had a sudden change of textbooks, that means we cannot even reasonably expect to purchase second hand copies from our preceding fellow students.

I wonder if the university had the students' financial strains in mind when designing the prescribed reading for this unit.

I live on Centrelink Youth Allowance, and this unit of Texts and Traditions is not the only unit I need to study, my other Arts unit Contemporary Society would cost me nearly 63 dollars; and my 2 law units' textbooks also are priced around 177 dollars in total.

Professor, a single unit's textbooks cost nearly the price of the combined price of all my 3 other units' textbooks, this is unbearable.

Even though the university offers textbook vouchers to those in need, first of all, the availability of the vouchers is limited, secondly, the voucher would only be worth 100 dollars.

I urge you to reconsider the prescribed textbooks needed for the Texts and Traditions unit, and make it more affordable for the students who will undertake this unit in Bankstown in the 2009 Spring Session.

Yours sincerely


If any of you thinks the price is unreasonable, please email Professor Wright, and make your complaints known to her.

 

[JasmineNuytre]

My best friend was doing a BA @ UWS last yr b4 transferring and he told me that for Text and traditions all he needed to buy was a unit reader, hamlet, Oedipus the king and a book by kafka. With a total spending of like $50. Fro Contemporary society he paid like 10 bucks for a unit reader.

It does seem very unfair you have to pay over $200 for one unit. Out of all my semester at uni at Usyd the most I paid for text books in a semester was $400. Maybe you can try to find some of the prescribed texts on the net or at a 2nd hand bookshop?.

 

[bryandawn]

Well, apart from Professor Wright, I also sent an email to Dr Michael Symonds, who was listed as the coordinator of this unit, but he sent me back an email, stating that he will no longer be coordinating this unit; instead, Dr Samar Habib will be coordinating the unit. It will be this person: Dr Samar Habib | University of Western Sydney (UWS)

So I sent an email to her too.

I don't understand what the uni wants to do. What's wrong with maintaining the status quo for this unit? Why did they have to change the unit arrangements?

 

[ambermorn]

Do you know what texts you'll be studying this semester? I did Texts and Traditions in Autumn 2008 and still have the unit reader plus three texts if you want to buy them off me - PM me if you do. The university may have varied the texts slightly but anything you can get second hand helps.

Also, you may be able to buy the texts second hand off textbookexchange.com.au - even if you get an older edition of a text, not much changes between editions. I bought older editions for Biological Psychology and Developmental Psychology and the changes were very minimal when compared to newer editions.

I do agree that it is unfortunate that the prices have increased for you, but things like this do happen when units are reviewed as a result of student feedback. I started Contemporary Society in Autumn 08 but dropped it because I needed to ease my workload. I completed it this year, but within the space of a year they changed from a 12 dollar unit reader to a 60 dollar textbook, ugh.

Good luck with the new semester.

 

[bryandawn]

It's not a price rise of the original books, none of the previous books will be used.

Here are the new booklist

Season of Migration to the North $22.46
Beer in the Snooker Club $31.46
Palestine $40.50
Complete Maus $26.96
Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories $23.40
Diary of a Young Girl $11.66
Memory for Forgetfulness $37.76
Seamstress $24.75

They did a complete unit makeover, no old books will be of any use for the new unit curriculum. I seriously don't know why we as students should be ripped off just like that. And I mean, 8 books! 8 books for 1 unit! And THEY ARE ALL "TEXTBOOKS", NOT PARTLY TEXTBOOKS AND PARTLY REFERENCE BOOKS.

I don't know why the uni hired her to head this unit and what agenda she has in revolutionising the unit. I mean, what was wrong with the old design? Why change everything?! I will be transferring out as soon as I finish my first year. I seriously regret for choosing Arts to combine with Law in the first place!

First, they made us do Media and Visual Cultures which I completely lack any interest of, then they madeover this unit with a high price that we have to pay. No wonder people detest UWS. I got into UWS only because when I used to be an international student, my education agent got me into UWS's foundation program, which is poorly recognised. I didn't even know what kind of education I was getting into until after I got here.

UWS, what a nightmare!

 

[ambermorn]

There's no point in you completing a BA if you don't enjoy it.

 

[Jaskkes]

That is crazy!

I did those units last year at Penrith and they were at that cheap price. What could they possibly be adding to that unit that would make it that expensive? The readings were annoying enough for T&T last semester anyways.

If theres a plus side I can sell you my Contemporary society textbook for like 25 - 30 bucks

 

[Radio97]

I'm also doing this unit this semester at Bankstown, and I asked a friend who had done it previously and he suggested that we dont need to buy the whole texts, and that there will be a course reader of some kind? But when I enter the unit into the unit search at Connectbooks, all of those texts do come up. That is a ridiculous amount of expense for one unit, my Law texts haven't cost that much, and I've gotten quite a few extras (legal dictionary, guide to referencing, general exam tips etc) on top of the required ones.
Did Nancy Wright reply to your email? You know what, I'm going to email her too, I wasn't aware of the difference in costs between doing this unit at penrith and doing it at bankstown, that is absurd.

 

[Lara1986]

Yes I agree that it sucks when books cost that much and whilst I sympathise with your situation, it's just one of those crap things about uni. You just have to deal with it or find a way of getting cheaper books.

Have you looked on textbook exchange or any other similar websites? As you may be able to find a cheaper copy on that website.

Or if you are really struggling financially, you can try public libraries or other university libraries?

Or try 2nd hand book shops - as they seem like novels from the titles and the relatively low price individually, so you may be able to find them at 2nd hand shops. I know there's a decent 2nd hand book shop in Blacktown and Newtown, not sure where else around Sydney they're decent.



Beyond that though, I know lecturers I have had at least, are conscious of the costs involved and they have said they try to avoid particularly expensive textbooks unless it is necessary.

Whilst obviously the uni should be conscious of costs, this shouldn't be at the expense of providing the necessary level of education and perhaps the prescribed books are the only ones that are adequate for that given area and they have no choice but to prescribe them... So i don't anticipate that they will change the prescribed texts on the basis of cost alone. If they've changed them there would be a reason for it.

Particularly if, as you said, they have changed the prescribed reading from the prior semester, there may be some reason that goes to quality for the change. I notice that the unit's title is "texts and traditions" which I would assume means it is a very theory based unit? So perhaps the prior reading material was not sufficiently in depth? or perhaps even there was no textbook available until this year (if it was published this year) as I've had that happen for a few units in the past.

 

[bryandawn]

Palestine and Maus are comic books, I've finished reading them from the library, during the holiday. I don't think we'll really need these books in our possession. I also purchased a few of the books from Amazon, cheaper.
I've tried the second hand book shops, don't recommend it at all. Not worth it.

 

[DTFM]

You can easily get a decent grade from this unit without reading all of the texts.

 

[ambermorn]

You know what, I'm going to email her too, I wasn't aware of the difference in costs between doing this unit at penrith and doing it at bankstown, that is absurd.

The unit is exactly the same at Penrith and Bankstown, it's just they changed the books required between semester one (when the unit ran at Penrith) and semester two (when the unit will run at Bankstown). So next February, Penrith students will complaining about this as well.

 

[xantoinette]

Ugh. I am doing Text and Traditions this semester at Bankstown too. I am super disgruntled by the price of these books...

 

[MonkEE]

Spend your money on something useful.