Bookstore Rants

Hey all (all one of you that read this, that is), I'm back, finally with something to blog about. Now, this is largely based on the experience that my girlfriend relayed, but it impressed me enough that I felt it deserved to be relayed. So for today's blog, I'm going to be talking by-and-large about the BYU bookstore. Those who want to firmly hold to belief that BYU is perfect and has no flaws, now is the time to stop reading. Maybe check out this cool link on youtube or something.

Now, every student at the Y knows that the BYU bookstore charges steep prices for the books, some being upwards of one or even two hundred dollars (thanks, media packs). And many students have likely heard about the possibility of getting cheaper books through the internet (For example, my girlfriend brought up that one of her books that sold for $50 at the bookstore could be purchased for $12 online). Now, one might assume that, since the bookstore will refund your books for the first two weeks of the semester, you could buy your books, look online for a less expensive copy, and if you found one order it and later sell back your text book. Well, it turns out you can't--by BYU's rules, anyways. So while you could return your book for reasons such as dropping a class, if our friends at the bookstore find out that you want to sell your book back because you bought it cheaper online, they won't be happy. Problem there is, since BYU has yet to get its hands on anything to give its employees psychic powers, you could very easily lie to them and say that you're planning to drop whatever course the book is for and go on your merry way. But oh, wait, you say, isn't that against the honor code? Well shoot, you're right--that against the honor code. But.., you say to yourself, they'll never notice, and who's it going to hurt? After all, the bookstore is overcharging anyways, right (seems kind of dishonest to me)? Now, I'm certainly not condoning lying here, but there certainly is a problem to overcome. And it kind of makes you think next time you're in the bookstore looking at that returns line, How many of those people are going to lie just because they need the money they're saving, or how many of them are going to be let down when they discover that they can't return their books? So I suppose the moral of all this is that until the BYU bookstore decides to change its policies, you better find out what books you need well in advance if you want to save money on books. Oh, and I wouldn't be expecting that policy to change any time soon. After all, rather than change their policy due to an article in the school's Daily Universe a while ago, they instead just ceased to advertise in the Daily Universe anymore (which in my opinion seems a bit odd, especially when you consider that there probably weren't ever tons of people reading the Daily Universe for their ads anyways). Anyways, there's my rant. Any thoughts or comments? Feel free to leave one!