Hi Everyone,

Its been a while since I have been on this site. I am just starting in the fourth year of a combined teaching/ counselling degree course and have just finished the 3 rd year which is first year of the counselling qualification. I have been off the site for a while because I recently battled & survived cancer. To cap this my grand mother died this year we had to meet the funeral expenses in July. My problem is this I am a part time self funding student when I am not doing I am a carer for my disabled mother & have managed to meet the college fees & cost of persoanl therapy for the course but the book list for the next part of the course is bigger than I expected. Does anyone here know of any individual, professional association, or institution that would offer either second hand books or help with buying them. This would be in return for a period counselling the needy or those who can't afford to access counselling. Any ideas or pointing me in the right direction would help as I return to college in a fortnight. There are very few sources of help in the U/K for mature students. I have tried my placement agency but have received little if any help due to a lack of funds on their part. I can provide evidence of qualifications if required.

Wow, congratulations pulling through so much.

My college suggests using www.half.com as an alternative place to buy books. Shipping might be a lot if you buy from someone not in Britain though. Maybe eBay UK would be more helpful since they'll be more people near you. Also, see if your college offers to take them back for a refund. Mine does that and the amount you get back is a pretty good amount (can't remember exactly how much I got back).

A good site which is a good starting base for learning links is the www.refdesk.com site (Home page has umpteen good links ) Worth a browse? (See you in a few weeks? (there are that many links ))
US University sites are your best bet for the material you need The MIT site runs to several hundred smaller sites
In fact it was a Professor there that posted one of the first mentions of AP on a private site(with lots of good links to those MIT subsites ) Lost it due to reorganisation on the servers here about a year ago And I can't find it on the search engines