Do any of you guys barely use your textbooks?

[az43]

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I'm currently taking bio1b and it seems to be very lecture heavy (just like bio1a). The book is useless and I only open it every once in a while to maybe reinforce a concept or two. Most of my learning/studying comes from making notes on the printed lecture slides and transferring those notes to a separate notebook. Ochem, gen chem, and math (especially) did require me to read the text though. Do any of you guys not bother touching the book and learn everything from podcasts/notes?

 

[sat0ri]

Sometimes I'll be under the impression that I have to read the book in a course, and when I finally do I realize it is an almost verbatim reflection of lecture and I realize it wasn't that important. Other times it is absolutely requried. Other times, we were told the book essentially is a waste--for instance in biochemistry, we were told the Lehringers Principles of Biochemistry would be pretty uneccessary since the class would be chemistry/mechanism based.
So mileage will vary, but you situation might be (and likely is) perfectly normally.

 

[Spitphire]

I never trust my professors lecture slides. I read every chapter the tests will be over then go over the lecture slides. Its worked for me so far.

 

[sbEMT33]

completely depends on the class

 

[Reckoner]

It seemed like textbooks got less and less necessary as I started taking more upper level courses. I didn't buy a single book during my last two years, but that had a lot to do with being broke as well.

 

[Ashley1989]

I always go by the book, because I've found that many of my professors will use questions from the assigned readings to separate the B+ from the A students.

 

[Pacna]

Freshman year - nose in the books.
Sophomore year - mostly used lecture slides. Some book use.
Junior year - didn't use books, still bought them.
Senior year - didn't bother buying any books.

 

[snowflakes]

completely depends on the class

+1. Some professors draw exclusively from lectures. Some include questions only found in the text. You can try asking TAs/prior students/the professor himself (tactfully) what to focus on.

 

[Psai]

Textbooks = scam
Wikipedia is surprisingly accurate for a lot of science topics although you should verify the information

 

[kyamh]

Never bought textbooks after first semester first year. I usually had at least one person I knew in the course and I would ask to borrow the book in the first week so that I could take photos/scan the practice problem pages.

If you know how to use it, the Internet is an amazing resource 😀

 

[No Limits]

Freshman year - nose in the books.
Sophomore year - mostly used lecture slides. Some book use.
Junior year - didn't use books, still bought them.
Senior year - didn't bother buying any books.

This definitely. At a point, it starts to get really annoying to buy a $200 book only to use it once or twice during the term...

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Lol @ using books.

 

[The Milkman]

I have wasted hundreds of dollars on unopened textbooks..

 

[SunsFun]

You guys must have had pretty excellent professors who know how to make PowerPoint presentations.

You can usually avoid books but for some classes they are a necessity (bad professor with sucky ppt). Although you could get your information eslewhere, if the prof is going straight by textbook, it saves a lot of time to just use that rather than scan through all unnecessary stuff on wiki.

 

[techiewizz]

I have wasted hundreds of dollars on unopened textbooks..

+1.

I bought a biology textbook and haven't read a sentence in it so far.

 

[plumhill]

Depends on the class. For bio classes I almost never needed it. For physics i would have been dead without it.

 

[487806]

Depends on the class. For bio classes I almost never needed it. For physics i would have been dead without it.

Yeah for intro physics, the book helps. For upper-level courses, it varies (just like any other class).

Freshman year - nose in the books.
Sophomore year - mostly used lecture slides. Some book use.
Junior year - didn't use books, still bought them.
Senior year - didn't bother buying any books.

Pretty much this.

 

[Leoz M Jiliums]

I use my textbooks daily because I'm too cheap to get my chair legs leveled.

 

[chondroblast]

It's actually sort of the opposite for me. I read straight through textbooks instead of bothering with lecture slides. It works for most classes. Some classes that are more about the process (math) rather than factual knowledge (biology) are much harder to learn from just the textbook.