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Comment by Sean1708 | Hacker News Reader

Is it an American thing to force your students to buy textbooks? In Britain (at least at the universities that I know about) there tends to be 2 or 3 recommended texts, of which the library will have several copies, and they're meant for reference when you get stuck rather than learning the entire course.

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Lots of instructors assign from books without reproducing the problems for students without books. Hence, it's typically required to have a book for a class. US University libraries will typically have copies of all textbooks used in any university class. Whether or not they have enough copies at any given time is another issue.

Also whether or not they have the updated edition with all questions...

I ran into that problem with my Operating Systems course this semester, I was just going to scan the problems I needed, but then found out they were different since the book was 4 editions behind.

It has been my experience that text books are available for checkout but only for two to three hours at a time. That way you can study there at the library and do your homework then return the book.

In Denmark, at least at the uni where I went in the 1990s, courses would use certain books which we were expected to purchase. Also, the university offered access to photocopiers at reasonable rates. Using photocopied books was not officially encouraged, for obvious reasons, but I don't think anyone ever got into trouble on that account. Personally I bought my books.

Yes, in USA you generally have to buy the book. In fact, because our teachers tend to get paid so little here, sometimes they will write a book, and then require the students buy that book to learn out of for the class. While this kind of sucks, I also understand them doing it because they get paid so poorly. The one thing I really hated though were the times we were required to buy a book and then barely used it. Which was often.

I got through 5 years of Engineering without buying a book. Between a bunch of copies of newer versions, some of older ones, some in English (this was in a Portuguese-speaking country) and some that couldn't be checked out from the library, there was always a copy available.

That was one of the high points of the college I went to, and I sure as hell did not take it for granted.

I had a fair number of classes I simply did not attend because the material was basically taught from the book, verbatim. Class was only needed if you didn't understand the book. I showed up to turn in the homework, get assigned the next set, and for exams.

At UC Irvine, almost all CS classes have either: free online textbooks, just suggested textbooks to help read along with the class, or a PDF that is widely distributed between students themselves. Most students end up never buying a $200 CS textbook

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