by Michael Sullivan

"Where were you $464 ago?"

It was not the response I was expecting. Particularly not talking to a complete stranger-it comes off a little too accusatory for casual first impressions. And yet, that's exactly how it was said. By a student's mother. Whom I had never met before. And I think it was at that moment I realized I was doing something kind of cool.

I, like many of my foolish peers, had an unpaid internship this summer. It was essentially all the work of a part-time job and none of the pay, with a 1-2 hour commute (depending on the traffic) from Palos Verdes to West Hollywood, three times a week. So after 3+ months of sugar coated slave labor, I got back to USC's campus needing money. Badly.

This is where CourseSmart stepped in. They were looking for "Student Ambassadors" to help represent their product and I was looking for a source of income. They wanted students who were passionate and involved on campus. I am passionate about anyone and anything that is willing to send me a check. CourseSmart and I were going to get alone just fine.

They sell eTextbooks, which are pretty neat in and of themselves, so it wasn't too hard getting "passionate" about the product. See, eTextbooks are a lot like print textbooks, but kind of superior in every way. They have the exact same layout and "page numbers" as their print counterparts, but they're digital, so they save the environment and weigh whatever your laptop weighs, and they cost about half of what the USC Book Store charges for the physical versions (about $60 off on average).

What's more is you can still highlight and take notes, and the texts are fully searchable and can be copied and pasted onto other documents easily.

The only real conceivable drawback is having to read off of a computer screen, but I've found that so many professors and TAs send PDFs anyway, I'm reading off my laptop regardless. Not to mention I had gotten rather used to reading things on my computer by then-namely terrible screenplays that I then received nothing for writing coverage on. Oh, the memories of my summer internship.

So I was trained in how to use an eTextbook, and how to show others how to use an eTextbook. And when move-in day rolled around, I put my training to the test...by handing out flyers on Trousdale and talking to exasperated mothers about how to save a buck.

The hook was: "Can I talk with you a minute about saving a bunch of money on textbooks this semester?"

The response, almost invariably, was: "Sure." It's what came after that varied.

One man wanted to know, "What's the catch?" He was pleased to find there was none. (Another woman used the interaction as an opportunity to sell me her magazine and coax me into attending a screening of H2 with Rob Zombie.)

But my favorite exasperated response was, "Where were you $464 ago?" By the end of my sales pitch, I'd convinced this woman to return all of her son's books in favor of digital copies (not without checking to see if they were available at coursesmart.com first, of course).

At the end of the day, I felt pretty good about myself. I played this enigmatic environmentalist and financial hero for penny-pinching parents everywhere-for a day-and it felt kind of cool.

Since then, I've continued with the position, talking to students and presenting in front of classes. There are no more cougars to woo with my indelible charm, but students themselves seem pretty receptive to the sales pitch as well.

The company recently released an iPhone and iPod Touch application that lets users read on the go, so I've integrated that into my spiel, demonstrating on my own iPhone 3G.

And ultimately, I'll walk away from the program, my wallet a little heftier, having accomplished something I didn't exactly set out to do: help fellow college students save some money, whilst decreasing their carbon footprint

Nifty.