I’m one of those students you love to hate.

I show up to class most of the time. I participate in classroom banter and engage the professor in conversation. I get As on most of my tests. I generally know what I’m talking about.

I don’t read the textbook.

I always promise myself this semester is going to be different. I’m really going to read the book, underlining key terms and scribbling notes in the margins. I scan online bookstores for the best prices, cringe as I hand over my debit card number and wait eagerly, impatiently, for them to arrive on my doorstep. I open the package, cringe again at the weighty thickness of both pages and content, and head off to school.

I usually lose track of them sometime before the first midterm. I usually find them the night before said midterm when, panicked, I’m looking for terms I know were not on that PowerPoint but I must know by noon the next day.

I have to wonder, in this great age of technology that permeates our classrooms and our lives, why it is we are still purchasing textbooks at upwards of $100 a pop.

That’s right: more than $100 for a book most of us will glance at and toss to the side after those first three weeks of the semester and those diligently uttered “I’m really going to study this time” mantras. We know we won’t get even a halfway decent buyback price at the bookstore, but we do it anyway. I think it’s so we feel smarter, when really, we’re not as smart as we think we are.

Most of the time, students rely on professor’s presentations and classroom discussions to eke out an understanding of course material. The key, as I have discovered, is never to speak first in these discussions. That is where you will get yourself into trouble. Just wait it out and absorb the information.

If the professor offers online supplemental readings, that’s great – you will have an easier (and cheaper) time of it. Find a tangential topic on which to wax poetic, and you have it made – no textbook necessary.

I don’t feel I’m alone in my textbook-reading avoidance. Generally, in every classroom I’ve ever been in, pre-class muted mutterings of “Did you read the book?” and “I have no idea what we’re even doing today,” prevail. Collectively, these classes have spent multiple thousands of dollars on potentially beneficial founts of knowledge that we end up treating as nothing more than dust-covered bricks sitting on our bookshelves, in closets or under beds.

I have to say, Sacramento State, I’m a little sick of it.

I’m sick of spending money I don’t necessarily have on something that has proven to be something I don’t necessarily need. That’s it – I’m done.

Unfortunately, I’m finishing my undergraduate work this semester so my plans to passive-aggressively stick it to the man by not purchasing those overpriced bundles of paper I am constantly told I need will not have a lasting impression on my college career. However, that doesn’t stop you all from participating in this silent protest.

Here it is: if you are like me and are done wasting money on books you buy but never use, stop doing it. Quell that inner anxiety that appears after you register for classes and book lists become available; you haven’t needed them before and you don’t need them now. Rise above the urge to throw your money away. Breathe, relax – everything will be OK.

At least, that’s what experience tells you.

Alexandra Poggione can be reached at [email protected].