How to Choose a Course

Personal interest and future orientation: Choose a course that really draws your interest. Interest is the best motivation for learning. If you like that course, you will be more likely to spend time working on it and retain what you learn. Also, choose a course that fits with the type of career you want to pursue.

Time schedule: Each course takes up about three hours each week. Starting from the fall semester, you can choose the course of your own interest, time schedule and future orientation. Night class can be finished in one shot, meaning the class will run for three hours each time. Daytime class will be allocated to 2 to 3 shorter sessions per week. The duration of one daytime class is normally 1 or 1 and half hours. Choose a section that fits your schedule the best. A good choice of timeframecontributes to half of your success. You can manage your time wisely in order to build a suitable schedule to maximize your study and work efficiency, especially if you have parttime job positions on campus.

Instructor: The instructor is really an important part of a course, as he or she is one to mark your final grades (joking). Different instructors have different teaching styles and philosophies. There is this website (www.ratemyprofessors.com ) that contains the information for you to know more about professors. You can use it as a reference to help you choose a professor whose teaching style is most suitable for you.

Besides, CBA faculty information is available on Rider Website https://www.rider.edu/academics/colleges-schools/college-business-administration/cba-faculty, which is a channel for you to get more information about the instructors at CBA. Feel free to contact them with questions about the programs, majors or their backgrounds. Getting to know the professor before you even sit in the class is always a good idea.

Exam schedule

You need to check your class schedule to know the date of the exams so that you can make sure to have enough time to get prepared for them. Check your course schedule on My Info on the Rider Website to access the detailed information of your courses (https://www.rider.edu/myinfo/). Following that, check your course syllabus on blackboard (https://blackboard.rider.edu/) to know the specific time of sectional exams or quizzes of each course.

Transcript information

Several days after each semester ends, you may check your Rider My Info to find out how you performed last semester. Log in Rider My Info and enter “grades” to know your specific grades of courses by term, as well as the term GPA. You may also access the information of your overall GPA and grades by entering “transcript”. https://www.rider.edu/myinfo/

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Textbook Buying and Selling-back

-Buying textbooks

Buying textbooks may be the first thing you will face before beginning your semester. In this part, you will learn how to buy a discounted textbook in the United States. In China, school will arrange most of things before a new semester including buying textbooks. However, in the US, you need to buy textbooks by yourself.  

First, you need to find the books you need.

Finding the book you need:

Step 1

 Find “Myinfo-Register for classes” in the quick links on the website of Rider University and login in with your Rider ID

Step 2

 Click “Myinfo for for Students”

Step 3

 Click on “My class schedule”

Step 4

 Choose your term such as “Spring 2010”

Step 5

 Click “Buy These Book Online From Follett”

 Then you will see the books you should buy for that semester.

Where & How to buy textbooks

1.  Bookstore

Rider University has a bookstore which is on the first floor of BLC. There are many used books with good quality and a discounted price .However, the quantity there is limited and the price is still very high. An advantage of buying from the bookstore is you can return them within the first one or two weeks of the new semester. 

2. Online

The biggest advantage of buying online is the significant lower price. The first thing you need to do is to find your specific books online. Some useful websites that students use to buy or sell books are Amazon, Half.com and so forth. When you are searching the textbooks, make sure the author and the edition match your booklist. You can also search textbooks by using the ISBN, which is a unique numeric commercial book identifier, located on the back cover of a book.

But how can you buy the cheapest books from these websites? There is a website located at  https://www.dealoz.com/ that compares prices of all books you want to buy online. Don’t worry about buying the used books. Actually, most of them are in good condition.

-Selling books

In the next part, you will learn how to sell textbooks in the United States. Used books are not valuable in China, but in America, the situation is different. Used books still have market. Since the price of a new book is very high, students are willing to use second-hand books.

Where & How to sell used textbooks

1.  Bookstore

The school’s bookstore also has a service to buy back your used textbooks at the end of a semester. The price depends on the demand, which is elastic. Sometimes the price is good, but sometimes one textbook may have no value because of the publishing of a new edition and a change in professors’ choice of textbook for next semester.  

2. Online   

If you decide to sell your books online, first you should create a seller account which is different from your buyer account. The website will teach you how to create accounts. All that you need to do is follow the steps and put the books you want to sell on the website. Don’t forget to check your e-mail, because once your books are bought by someone, an automatic e-mail will be sent to you to remind you to ship your book as soon as possible. Amazon and Half.com are two good choices for selling your books.

After you get an email from the buyer, you have to mail the book. You should first print out the buyer’s address and your address and then bring your book and money to mail service. The staff there will help you pack the book and tell you the amount of postage you should pay. 

 All in all, experience is learning through practice. I hope my suggestions will help you.