Is it worth saving your college textbooks?

[jargon124]

I'm a senior finishing up undergrad next week and entering med school this fall. I'm looking at a shelf full of old texts (Intro Bio, Mol Bio, Cell Bio, Genetics, Organic Chem, Physics) that I could sell back to our college bookstore for ~$300. Anyone see a reason to hang on to any of these? Will they come in handy as reference for classes during the basic science years? Thanks!

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[lilycat]

You can definitely get rid of the chem and physics. As for the others, it depends on how much you like them and how useful you found them to be. If some of them are pretty easy to follow, and you made good use of them in the past, they may serve as a good reference. I got rid of nearly all of my old textbooks and don't really regret it, but I do regret getting rid of some of my old notes, especially all the sets I made to review for finals and the MCAT. If you have useful notes, definitely save them, and if you don't look at them by the first semester, you can toss them. It's pretty much all new material by the 2nd or 3rd block of classes anyways.

 

[med student]

If you have any of the following textbooks keep them.

Biochem
Anatomy
Psych
Genetics
Imunology

The books you use in medschool can be very different than college textbooks but at the same time it is very nice to have an additional text when the one you have for the class is not clear about a given subject. As it was previously said it would have been nice to have some of my notes but only for the above classes. These are the books that I would burn because you will never use them.

O-chem
Physics
General Chem
P-chem

 

[Dodge This]

Honestly, I think you'd be safe getting rid of all of them--especially o-chem and physics. Mol bio will probably be most helpful at first. A few months into the first year and you'll have very little use for it.

If you have any thing clinically relevent, keep it.

 

[Jim Picotte]

I just finished medical school and kept all my undergrad books related to my major (Biochem). They've been in boxes for the past 4 years. Tomorrow I'm bringing them to a used bookstore just to get rid of them. I really should have sold them all.