If I've checked the Titles website for book listings and bought them is there any way that my profs could change the type of book needed on the first day of classes?

Also, if there aren't any books listed will they tell us the first day of class? I don't want to show up unprepared and unable to do my work. If I need to wait until after the first day of class to purchase my books will I be behind or okay?

I dont think they will change the books, but they might just not end up using them

you don't need text books right away. I suggest you wait until a couple classes to see whether or not you will need your text book. Try and save your money.

Professor's don't change them. Its just a matter of using them.

Originally Posted by lizziemcg

If I've checked the Titles website for book listings and bought them is there any way that my profs could change the type of book needed on the first day of classes?

Also, if there aren't any books listed will they tell us the first day of class? I don't want to show up unprepared and unable to do my work. If I need to wait until after the first day of class to purchase my books will I be behind or okay?

I always buy my books a week before classes start and I get ahead on the readings...I never had the issue of the prof changing the book.

wait until at least after your first lecture, your prof will tell you which books you need, if any, and which are optional, and whether or not they will even be useful or if titles is just trying to make a quick buck haha.

i swear, i went to titles and it said all 3 books for environmental science were required (there was a sheet of paper beside the books saying the required material).

i ended up buying them, going to lecture, and finding out the one book would only be useful if i was continuing in environmental science lmao, what a waste of like $45, i think i opened it once.

moral:

go to lecture first, then buy books.

I've paid $200 for a textbook that I didn't open more than twice. A lot of profs assign books because they get kickbacks from suppliers, and will not teach a thing from the book.

The library has all textbooks in circulation so for instances where you would need a textbook once or twice, just use that. Ask upper year students about classes (WW Faculty Day/Night is a good time for this) so you can get their advice on whether textbooks are actually needed or not.

One other thing to watch out for are profs who say that you need to study from the textbook AND your notes. In all my time at Mac (4 years) I have only once had a prof follow through on this. They all quiz and test out of class notes. The one occasion I did have a prof quiz out of textbook was 2nd year social psych where the prof would pull random statistics out of the textbook and quiz that... so not even a legitimate manner of testing.

Man, BIO 1M03, papaconstantino or whoever she was, read every word on her slide, completely terrible teacher, tested questions straight from a book that was supposed to come with my package of textbooks but wasn't, such bullshit.

Seriously though, there's no point in buying your textbooks before the first couple days of class, are you actually going to get ahead on readings? And if you plan on doing so, how do you know they'll start at chapter 1? lol, classes like chemistry are all over the book, skip to chapter 27, okay back to 11, blah blah. not worth it.

Originally Posted by blackdragon

I dont think they will change the books, but they might just not end up using them

Sometimes the book lists do change. Usually it's a matter of there being an issue ordering the books. I've had that happen in three different classes. In one of them we didn't get a textbook until the first week of November.

Originally Posted by deadpool

I've paid $200 for a textbook that I didn't open more than twice. A lot of profs assign books because they get kickbacks from suppliers, and will not teach a thing from the book.

The library has all textbooks in circulation so for instances where you would need a textbook once or twice, just use that. Ask upper year students about classes (WW Faculty Day/Night is a good time for this) so you can get their advice on whether textbooks are actually needed or not.

One other thing to watch out for are profs who say that you need to study from the textbook AND your notes. In all my time at Mac (4 years) I have only once had a prof follow through on this. They all quiz and test out of class notes. The one occasion I did have a prof quiz out of textbook was 2nd year social psych where the prof would pull random statistics out of the textbook and quiz that... so not even a legitimate manner of testing.

Quick question for you then, deadpool:

I'm planning on continuing Political Science, Honors.
I heard that there's various texts for the course, but from what I saw, there's only 1 major textbook used in the course.
How many texts are there in the first year course?

This advice probably stands true in all the Poli Sci courses I've ever taken:

If you go to all the classes and take good notes, the textbook won't do much for your marks. However, during tutorials you generally have discussions about readings assigned in other books, and get participation marks.

I tended to neglect my readings, but am very argumentative so managed to insert myself edgewise into all tutorial conversations. However, in upper year poli sci classes I have had to be a lot smarter about my readings because the content is more specific.

The thing though is, if you are very good at absorbing information, you will only need to do a reading once or twice before you remember all the valuable stuff. This means that you can easily achieve all your goals if you do all your readings and stuff early, by using the books on reserve at Mills Library.

The key to Poli Sci is to make sure you absorb the material so that your notes are supplementary to the stuff you learn.

thanks so much.
If anything, I think I'd just get the standard textbooks, then rely on note-taking.

Originally Posted by zango

wait until at least after your first lecture, your prof will tell you which books you need, if any, and which are optional, and whether or not they will even be useful or if titles is just trying to make a quick buck haha.

i swear, i went to titles and it said all 3 books for environmental science were required (there was a sheet of paper beside the books saying the required material).

i ended up buying them, going to lecture, and finding out the one book would only be useful if i was continuing in environmental science lmao, what a waste of like $45, i think i opened it once.

moral:

go to lecture first, then buy books.

does envir sci. 1g03 with machlachlan require you to buy textbook? or do u not really use it?

Originally Posted by zango

Man, BIO 1M03, papaconstantino or whoever she was, read every word on her slide, completely terrible teacher, tested questions straight from a book that was supposed to come with my package of textbooks but wasn't, such bullshit.

You didn't have the human evolution book? If you didn't have the book you didn't miss much. She reads words for word from her slides which are in turn word for word from the book.