Textbooks - Consult or no?

[LetItSnow]

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Hey. We just got our textbook list for fall, and for a number of the Elsevier books they list it with/without the Veterinary Consult option.

Can I get a read on the upperclasskin opinion: To vet consult or not?

 

[Minnerbelle]

Hey. We just got our textbook list for fall, and for a number of the Elsevier books they list it with/without the Veterinary Consult option.

Can I get a read on the upperclasskin opinion: To vet consult or not?

totally depends on how you learn best. i personally really like the vet consult because i ALWAYS lug around my laptop EVERYWHERE. And I always leave all my textbooks at home, unless I'm determined to lock myself up in the library to study or something.

i find it really helpful to just search a term have results pop up in all the books you own. that, and the figures online are really really nice because you can just copy and paste and print it out for things like anatomy to quiz yourself. I think Dyce has unlabeled figures for anatomy, which is nice. But even the labeled ones are easy to blank out on powerpoint before printing out.

but then i'm a very textbook heavy learner, so I rely on textbooks more than most people. if you're going to be the type of person who studies mostly off of printed notes/lecture notes and use the text as an occasional reference, i'm not sure it'll be worth.

 

[Cautionary Tail]

Did you receive it via snail mail? I'm not seeing anything in either of my e-mail inboxes...

 

[LetItSnow]

Did you receive it via snail mail? I'm not seeing anything in either of my e-mail inboxes...

Yupper, snail mail. I imagine it'll take another day to get all the way out there to you. (Check our FB page for more info.) After you get over the initial jaw-dropping cost, take a deep breath and go back and notice how little is actually "required." 🙂

 

[Cautionary Tail]

Yupper, snail mail. I imagine it'll take another day to get all the way out there to you. (Check our FB page for more info.) After you get over the initial jaw-dropping cost, take a deep breath and go back and notice how little is actually "required." 🙂

Whew! I was getting a little nervous there for a second.

The parental types let me pick out a few veterinary textbooks for the holidays a couple of years ago (hopefully one of them will make the list sooner or later and spare me some expense), and I was floored by how much those things cost... I thought my undergrad books were pricey!

And it begins...

 

[natalieises]

I think it depends on how good your professors and their notes/lectures are. Honestly, I barely opened some of my books this year. The consult would have been major overkill in my case.

 

[lareinesoleil]

Along these same lines, my dad's a vet and he has ALL the anatomy textbooks required (and recommended!) on my list but...they aren't the most current edition. Can I still use them? It would be a shame to spend upwards of $400 on something I basically already have...

 

[twelvetigers]

A lot is really similar. How much can anatomy change? Most of those books will be fine.

One exception would be something fast-evolving, like immunology.

 

[Cautionary Tail]

A lot is really similar. How much can anatomy change? Most of those books will be fine.

One exception would be something fast-evolving, like immunology.

So... the early 90's edition of Feline Immunology and Immunodeficiency I scored for 98 cents on Amazon last year is a no-go? Drat. 😛

 

[twelvetigers]

At $0.98, it's an interesting read. 🙂

 

[lareinesoleil]

A lot is really similar. How much can anatomy change? Most of those books will be fine.

One exception would be something fast-evolving, like immunology.

That's kinda what I was thinking too, but I still thought I'd ask. You never know, maybe cows have started growing 5th legs or a 2nd heads or something. I'm not a LA person, so I might have missed something like that. 😉

 

[StartingoverVet]

That's kinda what I was thinking too, but I still thought I'd ask. You never know, maybe cows have started growing 5th legs or a 2nd heads or something. I'm not a LA person, so I might have missed something like that. 😉

They do keep on switching the official names of some things so that can be a little confusing/annoying sometimes. Definitely saw that in the different editions of Dog dissection guide (de lahunta)

 

[nyanko]

They do keep on switching the official names of some things so that can be a little confusing/annoying sometimes. Definitely saw that in the different editions of Dog dissection guide (de lahunta)

Yeah but honestly sometimes professors at different schools or in different departments want you to know the old name or another old name or whatever...usually that kind of stuff can be cleared up pretty quickly but I do agree it's annoying!

(anatomy is annoying in general)

And FWIW, I really liked the consult for Miller's - I used it a lot and appreciated not having to lug that giant text around.

 

[Minnerbelle]

They do keep on switching the official names of some things so that can be a little confusing/annoying sometimes. Definitely saw that in the different editions of Dog dissection guide (de lahunta)

yeah... things like peroneal now being called fibular, and structures now being called by anatomic descriptions rather than some old dead white dude's name... but I don't think that should be a problem. At least here, the professor was really good about noting that kind of thing, and I have a feeling most professors throughout the nation would.

the only downside to older editions of anatomy texts is that they've really worked on the aesthetics of the figures recently, but if you can get it for free it's totally worth it!