uni books?

[shonakennedy]

this girl i work with was just telling me that she bought all her uni books last week. she is doing DOTS, but all the same, i thought you didnt know what you needed until you actually started uni? when can we get our uni books?

[humph]

Yeah once you enrol in O-week, you'll find out what books are prescribed for your subjects. But you might want to try to ask some later year students who've already done your subjects if the books are necessary, as sometimes they're pretty pointless. And definitely look into buying books 2nd hand (unless you need the newest edition) - there should be ads stuck up around campus of later year students trying to sell their old textbooks.

[shonakennedy]

ohhh ok. fair enough. strange that this chick has them already. i mean dots cant be that different? idk. oh well. i can wait and see. at what stage of the year must you have bought all your books?

[fredrick]

how much will it cost approx to buy all your first year uni books? im doing engineering at monash if that helps.

[squance]

I did first year engineering but at Melb Uni...
And my books costed approximately $800 (second hand books included).
The books I used the most were surprisingly my breadth subjects (Finance and Microeconomics)

Uni textbooks are useful for reference. Not 100% essential though unless your lecturer actually prescribes these textbooks as part of your subject

[shonakennedy]

so you spent 800 dollars on books that you didnt even need? :S confusion.

[Edmund]

Do we really need to buy all prescribed texts? Are we able to borrow them from the library? Maybe photocopying selected chapters would be cheaper...

[AppleXY]

Do we really need to buy all prescribed texts? Are we able to borrow them from the library? Maybe photocopying selected chapters would be cheaper...

Photocopying seems the most smartest way. Unless you want to keep the book for further reading

[squance]

so you spent 800 dollars on books that you didnt even need? :S confusion.

Yes. I bought all my books at the beginning of last year
Sometimes the books I didn't use much for good for reference or good for when the lecturer pointed out to read a certain section for extending knowledge of the lecture slides.
Actually, $100 worth from the textbook buying of $800 was a software package and I actually am finding that Im using it quite a lot, especially for Engineering (and right now, Linear Algebra).

Do we really need to buy all prescribed texts? Are we able to borrow them from the library? Maybe photocopying selected chapters would be cheaper...

No you don't need to buy all prescribed texts. And yes you are able to borrow them for the library - but if the demand for a certain book is high, then you may be only be able to borrow that book for maybe 2 hours so in that case it would be useful to have your own copy.

Yes, photocopying is cheaper but you can only photocopy 10% of a book (I think). Beyond 10% and you are breaking copyright laws (this reminds me of the Biology teacher I had in Year 12 who photocopied the whole Biology Leading Edge book and gave out copies to everyone in my class...LOL)

[ninwa]

Do we really need to buy all prescribed texts? Are we able to borrow them from the library? Maybe photocopying selected chapters would be cheaper...

Depends on your course, for some courses it's better to buy a prescribed text because you'll be using it all the time (e.g. law and arts subjects). Usually the library will have several copies of the prescribed texts of most subjects, but they will most likely be on 7 day loan (i.e. *must* return within 7 days, no renewals, massive fines if they're late ...)

Some courses might have "prescribed texts" and then "recommended texts". I made the mistake of buying some "recommended" texts. Don't. Waste of money. Borrow them.

[costargh]

There is a link on the myportal part of monash that says that booklists will be available end of Jan. So if you're going to monash watch that space Id suspect.

[phagist_]

I bought 1 book all year... and it was a waste of money =(

[midas_touch]

Most of the books ive purchased haven't been of much use to me. Unless the lecturer strongly recommends it themselves, then I wouldn't bother or at the very least, purchase them second hand.

[costargh]

Question: As soon as we enroll at the end of January, are we able to borrow books from the library?

[ninwa]

Question: As soon as we enroll at the end of January, are we able to borrow books from the library?

You can borrow books I think ~24 hours after you get a student ID card ... which IIRC you get when you enrol