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Forget Studying! Just listen to some sounds and become a genious!

Ok well not really, but the exploration of binaural beats have been shown to stimulate the brain in a way that can be similar to drugs or other influences.  It can help you relax, focus, improve problem-solving, sleep better and a whole host of other things that are just really cool.

I’m thinking of trying this focus stuff before a midterm and see how it goes!  The article can be found here.  So if you wanna get in on all the craziness check out SBaGen which is a program that has a bunch of these different binaural beats or check out I-Dose which has a bunch of stuff you can just stream!  I’m gonna try this stuff out and post my results!

Free tickets from StubHub!

Well, that is if they’re exactly $10.

Use these special codes and get $10 off $10 tickets from StubHub

POSTBF28             exp 9/22/08
EXIT29AK             exp 10/1/08

StubHub

Welcome, Freshmen. Have an iPod.

So apparently some schools are giving out iPhones and iPods for their incoming freshmen for the Fall. This is absolutely amazing, no wonder people love private universities.  But in all seriousness, is this really useful or just counterproductive? Hit the link for more love.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/technology/21iphone.html?pagewanted=all

Test Bank!

Ever wonder how all these people manage to get such high scores and you can never seem to do as well no matter how hard you study?  The answer is test banks!  These people simply have access to old exams which creates for an unfair advantage.

It is time to level that playing field with a test bank with previous homeworks, midterms, finals, and notes for these major universities:

Arizona State

Boston University

Brown

Caltech

Columbia

Dartmouth

Duke

Harvard

Johns Hopkins

MIT

Princeton

Rice

Stanford

U Penn

UC Berkeley

UC Boulder

UC Davis

UC Irvine

UC Riverside

UC San Diego

UC Santa Barbara

UC Santa Cruz

UCLA

UI Urbana Champaign

USC

UW Madison

Vanderbilt

Wake Forest

Yale

So head on over to www.courselog.org, and get some more “me” time.

Books are %$@!^%$ Expensive! What to do??!?!

Yeah, we all deal with it. Books! Money! Broke… So question is… how do we get our books and not break the bank in the process? Well first things first, only buy books when you need to. That’s right, gone are the days of being an overzealous freshman who desperately needs every single book you can lay your hands on, we gotta keep budget in mind here. On top of that, check with your professor if the older edition is acceptable.  Often times that new editions are simply ways for the authors to rake in more money by doing very little work and making poor students pay for new books, instead of buying used ones from their buddies.  Sure we can always just go to Barnes and Noble or Borders, but that just wouldn’t be very slick now, would it? With that said here are some ways you can get cheap books or free even:

Amazon.com really this place has a lot of books for much less than MSRP, and great place for review books for MCAT, LSAT, GRE, DAT, whichever poison you like.

Bookswaps

Bookmooch – You give away books to earn credits. Free, but pay to ship the books you give away.
PaperBackSwap – Same as above.
ReadersUnited – Same as above.
FrugalReader – Same as above, but this one has a premium feature that you can pay for.
TitleTrader – Same as above, but also has CDs and DVDs
Bookins – This one requires a $3.99 fee for each book you receive. You don’t pay for shipping though.
WhatsOnMyBookshelf – Same as the first few.
NovelAction – Membership fee of $25 a month, and you pay $4.80 for shipping up to 6 pounds of books.
BookSwapTextbooks
CampusBookSwap
BookHopper
SwapThing
BookCrossing
America’s Book Shelf
Free e-books

1. Project Gutenberg
   
2. Free-ebooks
3. Download free e books
4. Many Books
5. EBookLobby
6. Free Tech Books

Other ways to get cheap books

Booksfree – Looks to me like Netflix, same type of payment plan as well.

Flea markets / Swap meets

Thrift stores

Yard Sales

If all else fails, CHEAP places to buy books

Bookbyte

Half

CampusI

Bookfinder

AbeBooks

BigWords

DealOz

and last but not least FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE, my personal favorite, especially since you even get to know who you’re buying the book from. As an added bonus, you can potentially make a new friend… or better! One option that also seems to be popular are torrents, for books.  I in no way condone pirating, however many people have been able to find the materials they need through torrents.

If you have any more websites I missed, post and I will update links!

First post!

Wooo first post! Welcome to CollegeCrowd, the place for study tips, college-related news, deals, and reviews. This blog has just started so if you have any ideas/tips/suggestions feel free to leave a post and I will incorporate everyone’s idea.

So lil about me, Im a senior now at good ol’ UCLA, with awesome experiences and lots of stories to tell.  I like ot think I have also learned a lot in the way studying efficiently, having time for a social life and worrying about standardized tests and applications all at the same time.  So every so often I will post different things that you guys may find interesting.  Until next time!