<p>I'm a sophomore and I'm having a hard time deciding whether I should mark my books (highlight them, take notes in the margin) because I'm not sure if i'd sell them. What do you guys do? I heard that highlighting and marking up a book in general is more of an active way to study and can improve retention of what you study and help understand concepts. We'll probably keep our engineering books right? I wouldn't hesitate to mark my books if i know i can use them later on in life.</p>
<p>I keep mine. I would say save the ones that's in your engineering speciality.
Says that I specialize in circuit, I would keep all my circuit book but I would sell my communication/signal processing book</p>
<p>I keep all of my math/science/engineering textbooks. I've often had the situation where one textbook I owned did a poor job of explaining a concept and I was able to understand another's description much better.</p>
<p>It's also really useful once you get to the level of classes where everything you've been learning starts to mesh together. Now and then you'll be a little fuzzy on some details and it's much easier to go back to a book you've already used to brush up than some random text out of the library.</p>
<p>Also, marking/highlighting is a thing that varies from person to person. I've never really found it to do a whole lot for me. The most I'll ever do is put a star next to a certain paragraph or a post-it note on a page when I know it's one I'll want to refer to in the future.</p>
<p>Every single one of 'em, and they're all in my office. I've actually had incident to use most of them, too (even random things like fluid mechanics).</p>
<p>By the by, civs, if you're gonna mark up your codes, do so neatly in pen. Pencil markings in the margins aren't allowed in the PE exam room. Highlighting and pen markings <em>are</em> allowed. Also, best advice I ever got was to use post-it tabs to flag important equations and sections. I could dust my apartment with my steel design code... Had all my undergrads that I TA'd for steel design do the same, and they were really thankful that I'd recommended it.</p>
<p>I've kept all of mine, and they have been handy at times. Some of my textbooks are actually professional handbooks that you'll find standard in many engineering offices practicing in that field, so they will be of use later on. Also, definitely keep your calculus text; I've had to refer back to it quite a few times in my other courses and it's been a lifesaver. Keeping general chem or physics textbooks is debatable though... I've yet to use them since I took those courses. </p>
<p>Post-its are a HUGE timesaver on open-book exams. Who wants to flip through 2000 pages looking for one equation?</p>
<p>Depends on the job. If one is working as a true design engineer the books related to your specialty will likely be very helpful. For others, a general book like Machinery's Handbook or Mark's Standard Handbook will cover anything they will touch.</p>
<p>Agreed with ken285, but I'd say that general chem or physics books aren't worth keeping...you can look up anything you need elsewhere.</p>
<p>No,I try to sell my textbooks,all of them.</p>
<p>If you are just looking for a important equation or formula,just search it online.</p>
<p>As you get more and more specialized, you're not going to find those equations or formulas online, unfortunately. Nor will you find how to use it.</p>
<p>The internet works for physics and chemistry, but good luck finding the equation for the derivation of the "C" value in the equation for the capacity of eccentrically-loaded groove welds. =)</p>
<p>You can search for some of the basic equations and figures online but once you get into high-level courses, you won't be able to find some because they can be so obscure. I've tried it before when I didn't have the book I needed with me and the time I wasted was just unbelievable.</p>
<p>edit: oops, aibarr beat me to it.</p>
<p>I meant that everything in general chem or physics can be found online, not the higher level stuff :)</p>
<p>Do you even refer to textbooks while in the industry? Or is everything in real life so complex that the basic engineering theory is essentially useless? (use computers to do the analysis instead)</p>
<p>I refer to textbooks all the time. My real life engineering problems are pretty complex, but one of the things about it is that you start to learn how to break the complex problems into ones that are more manageable, that look familiar to the sort of stuff you learned in school.</p>
<p>And no, it's not just plug-and-chug with the computer... For me, the computer more or less just does bulk math, but I have to do a lot of work setting up the model, which involves figuring out how to apply my engineering knowledge in the right way.</p>
<p>Depends what their titles are. I rid of the non sexy sounding ones. Basically, if it will look good in my library, I'll keep it. :)</p>
<p>I have most of my textbooks from upper division courses. Most of the books your professor chooses are often times (or are hopefully) considered THE book to go to on a subject. Because of this, I think it's nice to have around so that you can just look up something if you need to refresh your memory.</p>