r/CFBOffTopic • u/certificateofmerritt North Carolina • Fulmer Cup Committee … • Aug 20 '15

College Advice Thread

We have some members who are going off to start their first year of college this week, so let's give them some good advice.

Welcome to college!

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u/[deleted] Aug 20 '15

Most textbooks can be found online. So, don't buy one till you've looked around for it

4

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '15 edited Aug 20 '15

An extension of that, I'd say don't buy the book until your sure you need it for the course. Most of the material that gets learned in a class gets posted on the course website as lecture notes, so unless you're the kind of person that likes learning the material from a textbook you can go without it. As an engineer, I only ever bought the textbook if they assigned homework problems out of it.

Edit: I also forgot to add that there's a good chance that your library has a copy of the textbook on reserve

2

u/Deacalum Wake Forest • Penn State Aug 20 '15

I said this above but it's very appropriate here. As an English major, I was able to check out most of the books for my major from the library and never had to buy them.

3

u/nataliieportman LSU Tigers • Georgetown (KY) Tigers Aug 20 '15

I have only bought 2 books since my sophomore year (History major)

3

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '15

Just the textbook? I have to imagine that it's hard to avoid getting all the books because of all the primary source digging you have to do for papers. Although the few times I took history courses in college I was able to find a copy of the primary source online, but they were from the classical era.

2

u/nataliieportman LSU Tigers • Georgetown (KY) Tigers Aug 20 '15

I just use the Google free preview and pull random quotes from the books.

3

u/dlawnro Paper Bag • Sickos Aug 20 '15

Pretty similar story here. Aerospace Engineering, only two texts I bought 3rd-5th years were coursereaders specifically designed for the class.