//BOOKS// //CLEVERNESS//

in case you didn’t know, blinkist (a nonfiction book summary app) is currently offering several free book summaries providing perspectives on systemic challenges faced by the Black community. 

there are titles from Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People by Reni Eddo-Lodge to The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander to Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi. 

hi everyone ! the world is scary and chaotic right now, and as a black student i’m torn between feeling afraid and feeling like i could be doing more. that’s why i decided to team up with a few friends and create Students for Black Lives. sfbl is a completely student run, not for profit project where students — mainly matriculating college freshman — from top schools will help other students reach their goals through essay, standardized testing, and extracurricular advising, and resume advising in with one ten dollar donation to a blm organization.

the goal of this project is to raise as much money as we can for blm organizations. as high aiming students who met our goals, we want to use whatever power we have to help the heartbreaking, incensing state of our world right now. my friends and i from stanford, harvard, upenn, princeton, columbia, cornell, berkeley, caltech, and many more schools want to do more than we’ve already done. i want to help my community in any way i can.

if you’re interested in our services, please follow our instagram and look at this document with more information. if you’re a student who wants to help but can’t donate or doesn’t need college help, sharing our platform is essential to maximizing our effect. 

As protests against injustice in legal system, discrimination, police brutality spread through the US, it is necessary to educate yourself about these issues. 

051620 | couldn’t print pictures so decided to sketch the landmarks instead! <3

been dealing with weird feelings about graduating soon and the degree i chose, but there’s no time to unpack all that :) instead:

today i bring you: free printables!!!!! aaaaaa im so excited to share this with you guys, i created some that I would like to use myself, in hopes someone else would like them too. you can see some of them above, so if you’d like to print them out, just send me a message and i’ll give you the download link!

drink more water instead of more coffee.

weekly goals are bullshit. set yourself 3-day goals. you’ll be less laid-back.

don’t just mindlessly stare at words. before you start studying, know your approach to it. have a plan.

summarizing the concept in your own words is the key part of taking notes. don’t just copy things down, convert them into your own way of talking, your own vocabulary, no matter how dumb and unprofessional it sounds.

don’t let the “studyblr aesthetic” fool you. studying doesn’t have to be pretty. summaries and notes can be messy as long as they’re comprehensible. you can always rewrite and reorganize them later. (honestly, you better do. and you better keep them.)

don’t throw away the papers you’ve solved your problems in. staple them to the fucking textbook. you need to see them constantly. cause you’ll need reminders of how far you’ve came, when you’re feeling discouraged.

don’t be an armchair analyst for your issues. if you have an idea then act on it.

remember: the exact point where it becomes difficult, is where your growth begins. take a deep breath, and try to focus on the paragraph in front of you.

get off your high horse and understand that if you’re a zero, you won’t go to 100 in a couple of days. first, you’ll need to reach 30, then from 30 to 60, and then from 60 to 90. nobody is 100 everyday. that happens very rarely.

you need to have fun everyday. you need to have peaceful time every single day. even on exam night. especially on exam night, actually. so make sure you’ve studied enough so you can have some time to yourself.

once you’re on a roll and in need of some challenge to stay on track, start writing down your studying hours. tell yourself you’re not allowed to do less than 80% of what you did yesterday. whatever the hell it was, even just one hour. so if yesterday you really studied for like, say 8 hours, today your goal is to study for at least 6 and a half hours. if you can’t keep up with that, make it 70%, or 60%. 

New journals & a lil Paper Haul

[Happy thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadians <3! Our streets may be cold this time of year, but our gratitude keeps us warm 🍂]

08.28.19 | 10/100 days of productivity

Finally got access to a color printer so I made a little moodboard! I love the way it turned out- it fits perfectly with the city theme I have!

September 20th, 2019 — Oxford, UK.

Textbooks are too expensive & the industry is a bit of a moneymaking scam. Here’s some sites, masterposts, and tips for free & cheap textbooks that might be able to help you out!

Cheap Books (Renting & Buying)

Big Words: compares lots of book prices!

Slug Books: buy, rent, and sell

Alibris: lots of cheap books & will send you coupons

Abe Books: fantastic website for searching tonnes of books

Biblio: has a lot of rare books

Thriftbooks: great for books other than textbooks, too

AddAll: the best search engine for books

GetTextbooks: sell and search for books

Chegg: very competitively priced

RentText: nice if you don’t want to buy!

Amazon: a tried and true classic

Textbook Rush: does buying, renting, selling, and ebooks

Campus Book Rentals: also has buyback which is niceee

Free eBooks & PDFs

Ebook Search Engine: google searches just for ebooks

OpenStax: legal & free!

TextbookNova: good but uses torrents

LibraryGenesis: great and a guide on using it

Project Gutenberg: a true classic!! great for classic books

FreeBookSpot: also has categories

Questia: mainly for classics online

Google Books: if you only need a quote

BookBoon: mainly for stem books

Ebook Lobby: categorised & more than textbooks

BookSee: nice layout & easy to navigate

Masterposts

Tips & Links for Textbooks

Tips for Freshmen

How to Find Textbooks Online for Free

Tracker with PDFs/E-Books of College Textbooks

How To Search & More Links

Alternatives to Buying Expensive Textbooks

Buying vs. Renting Books

Free, Specific, Renting Textbooks etc.

A Basic Guide to College Textbooks

Leak College Textbooks, Not Nudes

Sites Where You Can Get Free Textbooks

Tips

Consider buying a past edition of the book. If it’s a textbook, and not a workbook with required questions, you can often get the same information for just a fraction of the current edition’s price.

Try sharing with a friend (or more than one)! You can either take turns using the book, or scan the relevant pages and share them on google drive so you can all use the book for a much cheaper price.

Buy off another student. They’ll already have taken the class (so they might also have some tips!) and will usually give you a cheaper price.

Go to class first before buying the book. You might not need the same edition, it might just be a recommended reading and not required, or, if you’re super lucky, the instructor might send out PDFs of relevant chapters.

Make use of your school’s library. Get there first after class and borrow the relevant book, or scan/photocopy the reading so you can do it in your own time without having to pay for the book.

If you’re downloading from online, make sure your antivirus software is on. You don’t want to accidentally download a virus when all you wanted was a PDF (my antivirus has blocked textbook downloads before).