For the most part, i don't. First semester (was a noob), and spent about ~500 on brand new textbooks and courseware. Second semester, I only bought 1 textbook. I have an excellent GPA, too.

Anyone else like this? All the material I seem to be tested on, come from lectures.

Yeah, I did the same thing first semester of first year. But you're right, the majority of textbooks have little use and I always regret getting the ones that I do get. There are courses here and there where texts are a must (humanities students probably need more of their texts), but a lot of the time I find that they don't really come in handy if I have access to lecture notes.

If you can find the book as a PDF online, it's a great alternative.

I almost never bought textbooks. I only bought the ones that were absolutely necessary (like French, where we had homework three times a week). For classes like History, Political Science, Philosophy, Geography, etc., I rarely bought books. I had a third year English class with 6 books, and I only bought one.
Similar to OP, I was screwed over in first year and spent $700+ on textbooks for ONE term. I wasn't going to do that ever again So many books are available in the library, or online, or Hamilton libraries.

I buy most of my books, I find myself not wanting to go to class a lot of the times for various reasons so I always end up learning from the books.

Depends on your faculty

I find them helpful to have on hand depending on how the prof lectures.
For certain things, like Orgo, no. For certain Biology courses where we work from the text verbatim (despite contradictory claims), I treasure my textbooks like gold.

Depends on the course. This past year I didn't buy the textbooks for Stats 2B03 or Biochem 2EE3 and still did fine... but on the other hand I don't think I would've survived without my orgo and physics texts.

If I absolutely have to buy the book, I'll get it used via fb groups or MI's Marketplace

Originally Posted by goodnews.inc

I find them helpful to have on hand depending on how the prof lectures.
For certain things, like Orgo, no. For certain Biology courses where we work from the text verbatim (despite contradictory claims), I treasure my textbooks like gold.

Do you mind listing some of those courses, Bushra? (2nd year, in particular, and whether or not 2B03 or 2C03 are, would be most helpful to me - everything else is for everyone else)

Some of us have no choice if a large number of our courses use CCW

Yup; textbook for Organic Chem 2OA3 and 2OB3 is unnecessary. You're much better studying off the tutorials and doing tons and tons of practice. It's said a lot but that's because it's true.

I didn't take 2C03 (yet) so I may purchase the textbook for that. For 2B03, it was helpful to have on hand if you didn't go to lecture but there is a PDF out there that's relatively easy to find.
If you take Bio 2A03...buy it, buy it, buy it and only keep in mind what your profs tell you they teach differently from the text.

For bio 2c03, it's really up to you. I found it was a pretty good resource, and they referred to it sometimes. I would really buy a used version for like $50 or whatever it is, it's not too expensive and you definitely don't need a brand new one.

I was happy I bought mine, but then again I'm pretty crappy at biology in general, so you might be able to get away with not buying one for that course.

EDIT:

Also, since

Originally Posted by CAHopeful

For the most part, i don't. First semester (was a noob), and spent about ~500 on brand new textbooks and courseware. Second semester, I only bought 1 textbook. I have an excellent GPA, too.

Anyone else like this? All the material I seem to be tested on, come from lectures.

it seems like you're so keen on sharing that information, mind telling us what it is?

I don't think I would buy textbooks for technical courses (math, accounting, finance... etc). I think there is a reason professors choose to do certain examples in class, and omit others.

First year I bought most of the textbooks and quickly realised how big of a mistake that was. So note to first years: Wait a week or two and ask upper years what books you REALLY need. Don't bother buying books before school starts. Do some research first!

Second year I asked around/checked online for .pdf and saved a TON of money. Third year I bought maybe two books and I think I may even end up keeping them after I graduate since they are really useful!

definitely depends on faculty. my 1st year anthro classes, the textbooks were invaluable and the profs tended to use examples from them and test on those examples. i refuse to sell them because of the extensive glossaries, charts, etc that they have.