<p>Does anyone know how to find out which books will be required for each class before classes start. I would like to buy books on ebay, half.com, etc. now before moving to mcgill. does the bookstore have listings?
thanks</p>
<p>I’d like to know the same thing.</p>
<p>You could probably contact either the McGill bookstore, the prof or the department to know what books are required for each class. For a lot of the intro classes, it’s pretty much always the same book, latest edition, from one year to the next.</p>
<p>Unfortunately this information is not really available until the class starts.</p>
<p>Notice how the McGill bookstore does not have an up to date website with inventory, despite years of complaints from students.</p>
<p>Often profs will simply forget to order the books, and/or change the edition at the last minute when they realize they forgot to order the latest and greatest.</p>
<p>Your best bet is to wait until the first class, airmailed international softcovers take a week (sometimes) less to arrive to Canada, so you won’t lose out on much, especially since it will often take the McGill book store that long to get them in.</p>
<p>(I used abebooks dot com a lot.)</p>
<p>Books are of course a huge ripoff, some engineering texts cost 150-200$. </p>
<p>A few profs recognize this issue and don’t require textbooks, but it’s often not super successful either as that type of class relies on the student taking excellent notes.</p>
<p>Hey guys, you can always check out this website:</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.mcgill.ca/classified/books/]Books[/url”>http://www.mcgill.ca/classified/books/]Books[/url</a>]</p>
<p>and put in the course number of your class in the search bar in the left hand side of the page. People sell their textbooks on this site and as someone pointed out, profs re-use same textbooks each year or use newer ones which isn’t much different anyway.</p>
<p>From what I’ve been told, it’s not a good idea to buy the books before you’ve sat for the class a couple times. There’s the possibility of you not liking that class and switching it for another, resulting in wasted books money.</p>
<p>Hey andrewheat, unless of course the course is mandatory right? which in that case it wouldn’t matter if you’ve bought it earlier and even the older edition.</p>
<p>^ That would be an exception, yes.
Sorry for late reply, been busy with Montreal =P</p>