4 ms·

Just to add another anecdote: I'm also a CS professor at a well-known state university. We are free to choose whatever books we want for classes. To the best of

• colejohnson66 6y ago
  This lack of restriction does lead to the professor using a book they wrote themselves. So to take their class, you need to buy their book as well. I understand why they do that, but it just feels wrong. Obviously there’s some textbooks written by teachers that are quite amazing (The Art of Electronics for example), but not all are like that.
  • samspenc 6y ago
    Just to add, there is a flip side to this. As a grad student who did research and TA work, I've actually discussed this with fellow grad students and professors in the past and it comes down to the following... A professor would rather spend their time teaching students and finding the best existing book (less expensive if possible, but better quality is more important) so they can use it for teaching. I'm sure there are professors who have been thinking of writing their own textbook and getting students to buy them ... the downside is apparently writing technical books and textbooks earns less than minimum wage, and that's if you are lucky because of the way revenue split works with textbooks. So they have to charge exorbitant rates on the textbooks to make even a little bit of money. So most professors don't bother and instead use an existing good quality textbook. Not to say there aren't others who would try to write and sell their own.