<p>I always keep my math and science textbooks. Does anyone else hold onto their books? For the graduates, do you ever find yourself referencing them in your upper-division classes?</p>
<p>I held on to most of my books until I graduated. Now I have a handful of books that I never touch.</p>
<p>I frequently reference textbooks, either for graduate classes or for work. My first design job was in microwave circuits, and my primary reference was my old textbook. Every working engineer I have seen has a reference library which starts with their old textbooks, and is consulted frequently. I would save every engineering text, as well as texts from any related upper-level courses like math or physics.</p>
<p>I referenced them on occasion in my upper level courses and at work.</p>
<p>I will keep all my science, engineering and math textbooks. I will restate what my professor said earlier this week to the class:</p>
<p>“Keep the textbook and because you have used it, you can quickly reference it. Google is good but there are too much to digest. Other textbooks are great, but you never used them before so it can be time consuming. I still go back to my ancient calculus textbook when I really need it. Maybe you just need a formula, or an example to show a contradiction, or a famous “line” that you absolutely need, and they are in the book. You open it, and you find it.”</p>
<p>So for engineering students, keep those textbooks. You might need them to reference one or two things, and very often you might want to review how the authors “solve the problems”, which google is not an expert at all.</p>
<p>Very often, wolframalpha fail me when I need to reference something in math. I think this really important to the undergraduates. I am glad that I never sold any of my major textbooks yet.
And great question: I know I did the right thing :)</p>
<p>I am keeping my math, physics, and computer science books.</p>
<p>I’ve tried to google information that I know I have in my textbooks, but I didn’t have access to at the time. I didn’t have much luck finding it online. I’m sure the more common subjects you’ll be able to find on the internet, but when you get into specialty areas, it really gets hard (except for maybe software engineering, programming).</p>
<p>I reference them all the Tim as a grad student. All the time.</p>
<p>You will pry my textbooks from my cold, dead fingers.</p>
<p>Don’t give those things up. You’ll forget everything you learned in college, but somewhere down the line, you’re going to be called upon to remember something that you’ve certainly forgotten. Those books will save your rear. You’ve already paid through the nose for them, and those things lose half their value once you drive 'em off the lot, so make that money work for you for the rest of your career.</p>
<p>I’m also looking down the barrel of the October PE exam, which is open-book, so I’m acutely aware of the value of keeping one’s books…</p>
<p>
Wait, what? PE exam open-book??? I am a sophomore.</p>
<p>Yes, that doesn’t make it easy though.</p>
<p>Yeah, I took a mountain of books into the PE exam! It looked pretty funny. You don’t have much time to be digging through references, though - you have to be familiar enough with them that you can find info quickly.</p>
<p>Keep them, you’ll need them in grad school. I couldve saved some money because I used one of the exact same textbooks in a materials class that I used in college.</p>
<p>Great. So there are practice exams for PE, too?</p>
<p>I’ve heard about test takers bringing in suitcases or a couple of milk crates worth of books on a handtruck into the exam.</p>
<p>Yes there are practice exams for the PE.</p>
<p>There are practice exams for the PE, but they’re not that great. There’s two published by NCEES and then some more by the folks who brought you the big reference manual. Really, there’s surprisingly few for such a big test. You cant swing a stick without finding GRE/GMAT/LSAT/MCAT/SAT/ACT practice exams, but it’s a pain (and expensive) getting them for the PE</p>
<p>Probably because the market for PE exams is a lot smaller than the others you mentioned. How many SAT test takers are there annually? How many civil PE exam test takers?</p>
<p>Great info. I got to search more about this, and ask later. Glad to know sth about PE now.
Thanks.</p>
<p>If anyone is doing anything biological I recommend The Cell the molecular approach by Albert the 5th edition.</p>
<p>There’s actually no biological related PE exam.</p>