Fast Start? Fast mistake!
Sep 5th, 2007 by Miranda
Ok, I am going to get this off of my chest for one final time, and you all can consider yourselves lucky that you weren’t one of the first to hear this.
So I sign-up for Faststart….. Faststart is supposed to be this way of getting all your books, without waiting in the line-up; they can even be delivered to your door. BUT don’t let these promises fool you! I’m guessing that this is a new system so they may eventually work out the kinks, and kinks there were. For me anyways. So consider yourselves warned!
They reel you in with promises of ease and delight. I ordered my books, added that I would prefer Used books and inputted my address as I do not live on campus. I am then notifies that my books will be arriving on one of 3 days…. between the hours of 8AM and 8PM….. and that they will be unable to notify me on what day they are coming! This would be managable if I had a roommate at the time, or even friends(!) but I am then forced to put a sign on my door whenever i am gone, that my landlord can take my books (so far the only person in my complex that i have exchanged words with). So…. i go away Friday evening, no books have arrived.
Now, I have to go to the bookstore anyway (located very accessibly on University Blvd.) and not only do i have to go there…. I have to stand in line! You see, i know myself well enough to know my patience level… and when regarding line-ups… it is not high! So, instead of being all prepared and having my books ahead of time as the mature, responsible person I am would prefer, I am now getting my books the day before classes… instead of enjoying the Carneval.
Oh wait… it gets better! Once I finally get my box o’books I see what I feared the most.
6/14
Thats right folks, a big 6/14 is written on the side of the box. This means that out of 14 books that I needed to start this year, I have 6 AND they have given me the one I specifically asked that they NOT give me as I had already purchased it. Great… 9 more books to go and the line-ups have got to be as long as the Great Wall.
So… the long on the short of it is that I have had NO benefit from Faststart what-so-ever. I could have gone a couple of weeks before school, when i was bored, and made sure i had all my books but no… they recommended Faststart.
But I have made a discovery that I would like to share with you all.
Remember this. Add it to your favorites because there are a number of your books that can be purchased here (especially English books, etc.) and they will end up costing you about half of the cost from even getting a used book from the Student Bookstore and this is because sometimes you can get perfectly readable copies for $0.01! This means $3.95 for shipping and handling and the book cost you only $4 and some planning!
Sweet sweet frugality.
FastStart wasn’t so great for me either. I didn’t have nearly as big a nightmare as you, but dear goodness, I looked at one book and saw I was paying twice the standard price for it.
After this term, never again.
LOL. That is exactly what my father told me. And he was at UBC like a million years ago. I don’t know if they had FastStart then, but they had some sort of programme and apparently it sucked as well.
Glad I didn’t bother with it.