This thread is for all those engineering students in second year and on who find that some of the textbooks are really poorly written.
Some courses need you to buy two of them too, since one of them will not have everything you need.
I personally find some of the chapters are really poorly worded and almost impossible to understand. Others have horrible practise questions either they are too easy or extremel difficult.
Do others feel the same about this or is it just me?

Nope, all of my textbooks have been great (math...ehh.. not so much).

I liked most of my textbooks this year, with the exception of the Jaeger text for EI5. I loved my CI5/CJ4 textbook, and the Advanced Engineering Mathematics one was helpful, but it didn't matter because the test questions were no where similar to the textbook problems (for ZZ3).

Textbooks are not needed for the most part in my opinion. The only time I buy a textbook is if there are graded assignment questions from the book, because I don't want to mooch the book off a friend every other week.

In my experience the lecture notes are adequate enough and give you a good sense of the material that will actually be tested. 2nd year ECE I only bought the math text and I finished with a good overall average. As Dr. Nicolici said, text books now days are like a drug, profs and students get hooked on them and start to rely on them (something along those lines).

TLDR; Lecture Notes > Text Book

Originally Posted by Parminder S

I liked most of my textbooks this year, with the exception of the Jaeger text for EI5. I loved my CI5/CJ4 textbook, and the Advanced Engineering Mathematics one was helpful, but it didn't matter because the test questions were no where similar to the textbook problems (for ZZ3).

Jaeger is WAY better than what we had for EI5. Hated that crappy book so much.

Favorite book is definitely CI5/CJ4 book.

I buy textbooks now for my personal connection, most of the time they arnt even required for the course. I rarely buy REQUIRED books anymore, and if I do, its usually a $50 international edition

Originally Posted by blackdragon

Jaeger is WAY better than what we had for EI5. Hated that crappy book so much.

Favorite book is definitely CI5/CJ4 book.

I buy textbooks now for my personal connection, most of the time they arnt even required for the course. I rarely buy REQUIRED books anymore, and if I do, its usually a $50 international edition

international editions of books are the best kept secret of all time. Different book cover but everything else is the same and its vastly cheaper.

Originally Posted by LBJ.MVP

international editions of books are the best kept secret of all time. Different book cover but everything else is the same and its vastly cheaper.

Actually, sometimes the questions are different.

But to understand concepts, why pay an extra $100-150? :p

Glad to hear most of you found good textbooks to work with. I agree about math, I found the textbook did a really bad job explaining and on top of that the questions on the test were so much harder.
What I liked most about some of the textbooks were that the important equations were atleast explicitly noted in a large box, you didn't have to read through the derivation if you didn't want to. What was it about your textbooks that you liked ?

I thought the book used for Stats 3Y03 and 3N03 was a pretty solid book.

best textbook ever is heat transfer by cengel lol