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I had a professor in college that explicitly told us to get an old version of the textbook. It ended up costing ~$8 on Amazon instead of $80 for the newest vers
by xur17 10y ago
I had a professor in college that explicitly told us to get an old version of the textbook. It ended up costing ~$8 on Amazon instead of $80 for the newest version.
My physics class on the other hand had a book that was 'customized' for us (chapters were rearranged to prevent resale), and we had to purchase access to webassign.
- softawre 10y agoI am thankful that I went to college just early enough to miss this forced internet assignment crap.
- kwhitefoot 10y agoThe behaviour of US universities when it comes to text books is astonishing to me. When I studied physics in the UK in the mid seventies such behaviour would have caused massive student protests. Now there are courses in the UK that have no textbooks at all and are based entirely on laboratory work, lectures, and on line study. In fact when I studied there was no real requirement to buy books at all. Of course most of us did spend a lot on books but it was nothing compared to the amounts I regularly see mentioned on line in discussions about US unis. It was simply convenient to use the recommended book so that lecturers could refer to chapters, formulas, and figures and so on and so that when you asked your fellow students for help that you would all be on the same page so to speak. In theory you could have got by with your own lecture notes and visits to the library. I'm quite sure that my old copy of Lorrain and Corson would be just as good for EM part of a bachelor's in physics now as it was in 1975. In fact I think I'll dig it out and start to refresh my skills.