For those of you here that have taken any of the following courses:

Elec Eng 2CI5
Comp Eng 2SH4
Eng Mgmt 2AA2
Commerce 2AA3
Econ 1BB3
Math 2Z03

Which classes here absolutely require a textbook? I've heard bad reviews about the 2CI5 textbook (Basic Engineering Circuit Analysis - Irwin), and for some of these textbooks there's no used copies, making them very expensive. If you've taken any of these classes before, can you comment on a) the difficulty of the course, b) how important the textbook is, c) if it matters if you use an older edition, and if you're up to it, d) what your experience was in any of these courses.

Hey,

The book for EE 2CI5/2CJ4 was really useful. It's the only way of doing practice problems and the prof takes qUestions for the tests and exams from the book. so it's good to have the book to do some problems or read through concepts you didn't get because you didn't go to class.

There was no book for 2sh4 last year so I can't really comment on that. The prof had readings assigned from some online textbook but it was pretty useless. Eng mgmt 2aa2 doesn't have a book, it's a really easy course... Don't worry about it!

Macroeconomics and accounting books are up to you. I didn't get the book for 1bb3, it's all on her slides, and I did good in the course still. the 2aa3 book you don't need to get if you feel you are good at accounting. It's a pretty easy course. But the book has some practice questions that appear on tests and midterms.

You definitely want to get the book for the math courses, you are screwed without it. You won't get much in class and are going to have to read the book for clarification on the concepts.

Can't comment on any of the management textbooks, but 2SH4 (last year at least) didn't have any textbooks (or they were online in library reserves, I forget. Didn't use them either way).
The 2CI5 textbook isn't terrible, and you use it for 2CJ4 too, so I'd say its pretty worth it. You can also find a solutions manual for it online, which makes it over 9000 times better.
For 2Z03, it's unlikely you'll learn anything from lecture, so the textbook is pretty essential.
Difficulty wise, 2SH4 should be an easy 10 at least as long as you aren't completely incompetent at programming. 2CI5 is somewhat difficult, but reasonable for the most part (the exam last year was pretty terrible though). 2Z03 is pretty damn hard, but doable. 2ZZ3 on the other hand....you're pretty screwed.

Also, older editions of all should be fine. I used the old version 2Z03/2ZZ3 and had no issues.

Edit - Damn, beaten to it.