Obtaining knowledge is a fundamental part of a student’s life at Iowa State. Like the university’s mission statement, which is to “create, share, and apply knowledge to make Iowa and the world a better place,” students should seek knowledge while at Iowa State and apply that knowledge when they’re in school and after they graduate.

However, some students lose sight of this aspect of student life and view attending Iowa State as a means to an end — go to classes, do their homework, take tests, etc. to get their diplomas, which assists them in getting jobs. The large amount of students who sell their textbooks after their classes end demonstrates a neglect of the importance of the skills and knowledge they learn while achieving their diplomas.

Not all textbooks are created equal. Many are unenjoyable to read, and some are not as educational as others, whether because of the quality of the book, the student’s interest in the course topic, etc.

If a student never opens a textbook or judges the information in it as unhelpful, he or she should sell the textbook and earn back the money he or she spent. After all, college is expensive and even the $5 a student receives from selling back a textbook may be the deciding factor on eating dinner or going hungry.

However, some textbooks are crucial to a student’s development, especially those relating to a student’s major. Many of the textbooks in introductory courses contain topics that students will need to know for subsequent courses.

Introductory textbooks are similar to prerequisite courses in that students must read introductory textbooks in order to understand other textbooks, like students must take prerequisite courses to comprehend additional courses.

For example, the introductory textbooks in Sociology 134, the prerequisite course for several upper-level sociology courses at Iowa State, teaches students about basic sociological theories and the famous sociologists who created those theories. In upper-level sociology courses, those theories and sociologists will be mentioned countless times. If students did not read those textbooks, and therefore did not learn that information, they may struggle.

Essentially, introductory textbooks lay the foundation for the knowledge students acquire both in school and in their careers. Like removing parts of a house’s foundation, if you sell back important introductory textbooks, the knowledge base you built through reading those textbooks may crumble.

To maximize their learning experiences, students should keep their important introductory textbooks as reference material for them to use in the future. The likely small amount of money a student will receive from selling his or her textbooks will be insignificant in comparison to the information that student may lose in giving up those textbooks.