My D will be a freshman this fall in civil engineering. Although she took Honors Chemistry in her junior year, I’m pretty sure the instruction was weak due to the teacher’s health issues and the lack of a qualified substitute. I’m also skeptical about the physics instruction. Anyway, can you recommend or give names of textbooks that were used in your beginning chem and physics classes?
As a physics major, I can’t recommend highly enough The Feynman Lectures on Physics, which are now on line:
Each teacher at cal poly will have his or her preferred texts. Don’t buy any until they tell you what they want.
Thanks, I do understand that, but I was really asking about some good supplementary reading to help bone up over the summer.
The Physics 131-133 sequence this year has used “Physics for Scientists and Engineers”, 3rd edition by Randall Knight. The Chem 124 classes are using this free open source chemistry book:
https://openstax.org/details/chemistry
I’m guessing Chem 125 will also use it, but don’t know for sure.
I’d recommend Kahn Academy over any book. It’s free and very well done. My son stepped into Cal III and Physics II first quarter and used Kahn just to ensure his previous work was up to snuff. He’s done very well.
Thank you BOTH very much! This is a wealth of information! And coming from out-of-state (with the higher tuition), it’s exciting to see a FREE book being used:)
Thank you also, Muad_dib, I just saw you post as well. She will check out those lectures, for sure.