<p>I'm getting ready to enroll for freshman year and I have had some teachers tell me that kids have come back from their first year to say things are so much easier and all you really need is a laptop and some notebooks.</p>
<p>My parents tell me that everyone will most likely be lugging around all their crap.</p>
<p>I had back surgery a year and a half ago so I would love for their not to be much to carry especially as a commuter. </p>
<p>My question: Are textbooks generally carried class to class? Or could I maybe buy pdf copies?</p>
<p>The laptop thing is really popular right now. I would suggest you buy pdf copies and make copies so that if you lose them you will still have a backup copy - if you can afford textbooks AND pdf’s that would be better. That way, when you go home you can study from textbooks and not strain your eyes, and in class you will have the luxury of using a computer version.</p>
<p>It really depends on what class you’re taking and what the professor says. For some classes, you don’t even need the textbook, and for others, you do. Sometimes the professor never even talks about the textbook during lecture, so later on, you’ll learn that you can just keep it at home.</p>
<p>They also have looseleaf copies of textbooks, so you can take out the chapters you need for that lecture, etc. </p>
<p>If you’re a commuter, can’t you use your car as a locker? I remember my friends did that, but they always hid their textbooks under the seats.</p>
<p>Well I am commuting by passenger train. It is basically door to door so if I could use my laptop productively on the 40 min ride that would be awesome.</p>
<p>I’ve never had to carry textbooks to class in college, except for humanities classes where the textbooks are paperback books. You might want to take your textbooks to school with you if you want to stay on campus and study. But even then, instructors often put copies of the textbook on reserve, so you can just use those instead of bringing your own.</p>
<p>It depends on the kind of school you attend. I go to a small LAC and I have books that I do have to carry and no one brings their laptops to class. My brother attends a larger university and he just brings his laptop.</p>
<p>Pretty much agreeing with what everyone else says, it really depends. My Stats class requires we bring a textbook, whereas if I’d taken it with someone else I wouldn’t (but I wouldn’t have an A either so…there ya go). My Chem class doesn’t require the textbook but requires a workbook on Tuesdays when we have lab. The laptop is also a hit or miss at the lower level colleges, it depends on the class as to whether you should bring it, some do, most don’t. I’d reccommend it for something like Psych 2/Exp Psych but not so much for a multicultural lit course.</p>
<p>I drop everything off in my dorm in between classes, so I never have more than my computer and maybe one book. When I was a commuter I traded books off in my car between classes. However, if I didn’t have time to do that I’d have to lug everything.</p>
<p>I usually lug a few books around. No more than two at a time, though. I always have my accounting textbook on me in case I want to study or do homework, and occasionally, I would have my organizational behavior textbook on me as well so that I can do the homework. </p>
<p>Usually, I take a laptop, a few notebooks and manilla folders, and one or two textbooks with me to campus every day. Occasionally, I’ll bring a lunch as well.</p>
<p>You don’t need to bring books to class usually. In fact, unless you major in a science, you wont’ have that many regular textbooks. My humanities “textbooks” were usually small academic texts or primary sources (for example Plato’s Republic), they were light and relatively easy to bring to class if needed. The English students needed their full edition of Riverside’s Shakespeare everyday, which is mammoth, but most of us did not have that issue. </p>
<p>Whether laptops are brought to class or not depends on the class and the school and the teacher’s policy. I brought my laptop to my larger classes, but not to my smaller courses as it tended to get in the way of discussion. Some never brought their laptops. If i did bring it, it was usually the heavies thing in my bag.</p>
<p>I rarely have to bring the actually book to class. In fact I usually didn’t even buy most of my books. The readings were online or there was a copy of the book on reserve in the library or I would share it with another student. It really depends on the class, but you should be fine without getting hard copies of all your books. If it does become a problem, mention your condition to your professor, they might have a solution for you.</p>
<p>I don’t even use my textbook for half my classes much less bring it!!</p>
<p>I had one class last year where we were supposed to bring our books, and in one of my classes this semester, we have to bring one of our books on occasion, but that’s it.</p>
<p>Generally for class I have:</p>
<ul>
<li>My folder with all my class notes</li>
<li>Pens</li>
<li>Highlighters</li>
<li>Notes (printed out and provided by our instructors) or a notebook</li>
</ul>
<p>…nothing else…so it all fits neatly in my [large] purse.</p>
<p>Only for a couple classes have I brought my laptop on a regular basis, and for one the reason was that my professor spoke super fast, and I write super slow so if I didn’t type out my notes I would miss more than half of what she said, and for the other it was because my professor was really bad at teaching in a linear manner, and adding notes to the appropriate spot is so much easier when you can just click and be there (plus, the class was extraordinarily boring, so I would bounce between notes, studying for anatomy and Facebook).</p>
<p>Unless you’re doing science or math, you probably won’t even have a “real textbook.” All my humanities classes either use paperback anthologies (English) or small published works (novels and things like nonfiction studies, experiments, analyses, etc.)</p>
<p>The only class I have a textbook for is Japanese, and that’s still a small paperback textbook that isn’t even the width or height of my notebook for the class.</p>
<p>In addition, you rarely need the book in class. The only class where I bring the book is Japanese (because we do in-class exercises). For other classes, I just bring the small novel/book we’re reading for the week or my laptop if we read articles or .pdf scans instead.</p>
<p>So my backpack consistently contains a few small novel-sized books, a notebook or two, and my pencil case.</p>
<p>It’s noting like lugging books around in high school.</p>
<p>I carried around all my books in high school, didn’t even use my locker. I needed the books for class and my locker was a half mile away from most of my classes so I didn’t bother-- AND I had to carry a laptop in high school, too. Man, I don’t miss those days at all. I don’t think I could even carry that much anymore.</p>
<p>Well, considering we used them everyday in class and my school was too poor to afford two sets of books for every student for every class, yes, I lugged them around for 4 years.</p>
<p>That’s odd. We rarely used books in my high school classes. They were almost exclusively for homework.</p>
<p>We also didn’t have 2 sets for every student. I mean, for some classes there were enough that we could keep our books at home and then have a set in the classroom, but that wasn’t really the norm.</p>
<p>Also, I’m just surprised that you carried them in HS because I don’t know anyone IRL who did…</p>