I am going to go into my freshman year of engineering this upcoming fall and I want to know what you guys recommend regarding study habits, calculators, books ( how do I not pay full price)
I recommend the T34 from Texas instruments. Pretty much the best non graphing calc you can get. It’ll convert units for you, solve quadratics and systems. Buncha other stuff.
For study habits based on my son’s comments: Do all the reading before class, take good notes in class, organize (possibly rewrite) your notes after class, do all of the review problems, get help when you need it.
For calculators, my son used the same graphing calculator he used in high school.
For books after freshman year my S has rented books he doesn’t expect to want to keep.
I would not buy a new calculator yet. My son took his from HS and then learned he could not use it on tests because it was programmable, so he ended up buying a basic scientific calculator.
For books, I would recommend checking rental prices on Amazon. Have had some good luck there, and with prime they ship straight to his dorm in two days.
I have kept my two calculators from high school – TI-83 Plus for graphing (used it for Algebra 2 freshman year), and TI-30XS for non-graphing (often required in chem). My math classes so far have been no-calculators-allowed, as is physics.
Books…
Firstly, go to the online website for the bookstore at your target college to see what texts will be required. If you are lucky, the texts for the foundational courses won’t change frequently from year to year. For example, for Calculus 1 it’s likely that if it’s a recent edition, the same book that was assigned for Spring term 2015 will be used for Caluculus 1 this fall. If you are unlucky, your college has entered into a special arrangement with publishers to provide school-specific editions of textbooks for your required STEM classes. This is a racket that most students really cannot avoid, unless you can productively deal with the hassle of using the standard version when your classmates and the professor are going with the special edition. Some students navigate the differences between such editions to save money.
Secondly, buy copies of the next most recent edition WHENEVER you can. Believe me, my son saved a tremendous amount of money buying edition 8 rather than edition 9. And there was little difference between the two, and…the professor was very supportive and gladly made sure that Lake Jr. had the right problem sets that were assigned in class. Typically the only difference between recent editions of a STEM textbook will be that the publisher has re-arranged the order of the homework problems, or combined or eliminated the number of chapters by one or two. Usually the stuff the add or drop was not crucial to the class anyway, many kids say.
Finally, we are sold on the notion of purchasing International Edition textbooks. Again, often there is little to no difference in the actual text/information. Even when at times there are differences in pagination, it doesn’t affect your ability to participate in the classroom or to do homework. For example, one of Lake Jr’s Chemistry classes used a widely assigned text (considered the definitive undergraduate coursebook in the field) which at his college bookstore was sold at $125 new for the cheapest version, in loose-leaf. He instead went online and purchased a new hardcopy International Edition for $100. The U.S. and the Int’l Edition were identical in appearance (the cover) and content. He doesn’t like loose-leaf because he is a bit rough on his books, and most loose-leaf books are notoriously flimsy. He usually saved at least 50% on his STEM textbooks by purchasing I.E. books.