Used books -- cash or trash?

I am finally ready to graduate. I have gone through the rite of passage every college senior must face before they can enter the real world. \nYes, I ordered the cheese tray for my graduation party. Somehow this milestone collegiate event has become synonymous with a binge consumption of dairy products -- not that I'm complaining. The more cheese I stuff in my mouth, the less I have to think about finding a job. \nI'm just hoping the money I "earned" selling my books back will suffice me for the summer. At least I had the courage to actually sell my books back. Over the past four years, I've noticed that there are three types of people who deal with their textbooks at the end of the semester. \nThe first group is the idealists. They don't care about the money they could get back. They just want to make a statement. I witnessed an example of this as I drove down Woodlawn and noticed two open textbooks lying casually in the middle of the street. They were arranged haphazardly, their pages flying about, but screaming "I am art!" I could picture their previous owner, a few houses down, lighting up a cigarette and burning the rest of his books in his bathtub. \nThe second group is a little less motivated toward making a statement, and a little more focused on the money. These are the people that you see randomly running across campus for no apparent reason. (Yes! That phenomenon is finally explained!) They barely finish bubbling in their course evaluations before lighting a fire under themselves and rushing over to T.I.S. to get rid of their books as soon as possible. \nAfter collecting whatever random amount the Great Buyback 8-Ball has decided to bestow upon the young seller, they will head for the nearest bar and proceed to spend it as soon as possible. This also explains why people walk around campus smiling to themselves -- I know you were wondering about that, too. They are fascinated by the idea that a 400-page textbook can transform itself into an evening's worth of beer. \nTo analyze this phenomenon, I decided to ask an expert in the area of psychology to explain why certain people are in such a rush to get rid of their textbooks. At the time the most convenient expert was a friend who had taken four weeks of Psychology 101 five semesters ago. She suggested that perhaps students are looking for closure and the easiest way to do that is to sell their books. That, and they're really broke.\nThe final group of students you won't hear much about because they are at home staring at their textbooks from all the semesters before. These are the people who say, "I think I'm going to keep my books this semester, they are related to my major, and I may be able to reference them throughout my career." \nThese folks seem to forget the fact that the very material they struggle to save may not be of use to them because they didn't even read it the first time. In a momentary panic, I considered joining this group of students, because I may be at an advertising agency one day and forget advertising is "the business of drawing public attention to goods and services."\nSo I say, sell your books. You'll get some extra money and close a chapter on your life. And if you act fast, you can grab the random textbooks in the middle of Woodlawn and sell those, too. \nI'm sure their owners would have wanted it that way.