Getting By Without a Textbook

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>My third year of engineering is going to start soon and I will have all engineering classes for the quarter. I'm excited and nervous at the same time but I feel like I need to be mentally prepared for it. Because I want to do the best I can though, I need advice on how to do well in my courses without a textbook. I've come to realize that I can never do well just by reading the text unless the concepts are super simple to understand (which doesn't apply this year). Because college courses require so much work outside of class to understand the material, I've always in the past used my textbook to try to get more insight on the concepts. This though never worked out for me because I would always get lost because the authors would go from equation to equation many times without explaining how they got there or they would reference equations from 5 different chapters and magically produce a new one without explanation which results in my throwing the book against the wall. It's not the math I don't understand when they derive equations; it's that the authors don't tell me what mathematical techniques they're using so I have to do detective-work and a lot of guess-and-checking to figure out what the authors were up to.</p>

<p>In the past, with simpler classes, I would find different resources like Khanacademy or youtube lecture videos on the given subject in order to do well. I would be able to go into class knowing that I knew most of what was going to be covered already and this led to high scores on the tests. With higher leveled subjects though, the amount of resources that can help me dwindles substantially and after reading the a given chapter, I would go to class still not knowing what was going on.</p>

<p>Next to going to lecture, I feel like reading a textbook is the worst way to learn something. How do people who don't learn well by reading textbooks do well in upper division engineering courses without doing the obvious like going to every lecture and going to office hours and studying in a group. </p>

2

<p>The obvious way is the best way. You can’t just always rely on all the resources you need being there for you, because that’s not how the world works. The higher up you go, the more you have to be able to figure things out yourself.</p>

<p>Learn to manage with what you have. It might be painful, but that’s how you learn.</p>

3

<p>So I should just power through with just my textbook and my lectures? Sounds reasonable.</p>

4

<p>You can go to instructors’ office hours and ask for help explaining parts of the book you have difficulty understanding.</p>

5

<p>That’s the way of the world as it stands today. You’ve got to adapt, adjust or improvise.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that while some STEM textbooks are just plain awful, some are more helpful and easier to understand than others. Check you library for good reference books other than the assigned text. Use those books in addition to your text.</p>

6

<p>I wouldn’t rely on Khan Academy to learn math, anyway. They are pretty good at explaining the mechanics of how to compute things, but in terms of understanding the actual math, they are sometimes rather low-level.</p>

<p>At any rate, probably the best things for people who don’t do well with lecture or the book are working in small groups with peers or going to discussion sessions with the TAs assuming you have a halfway competent TA. Office hours were already suggested, and are also a solid idea. Also, don’t be afraid to ask questions in lecture.</p>