Science text bboks

starn

Staring Science in trinity in oct. Ideally I'd like to pick up my text books now while i still have a full time job/ Looking to do pyscis, maths and geology modules. Can someone tell the core texts for these please

Boston

Doesn't work that way in college. Theres no set of text books you need to go out and buy year to year. Lecturers should not be working from a book. However sometimes tutorials are given from various Texts and concepts are covered in more detail in books. Bascially its more of a recommendation then anything else about what you should get, and the library will have anything you need. One or two books you might feel are so good or rare they merit being bought and kept for the rest of your life as a reference. You won't know what these books are untill you start.

Bah, boards died in the split second I pressed the quick reply button.

Wait at least 'til you have your results. If you get over 550 points, you get a book voucher. But even still, I think it can be used in HMV.

There are usually more than enough core texts in the library (as an undergrad you can take out 4 at a time) and the books you'd buy in first year may be too general for your 4 years of college. The lecturers may completely change the focus of a course, and you might be left with a book (costing €60 upwards perhaps) which you don't need but would be a fantastic paperweight.

Even if the library doesn't have enough books, you can request more from the subject librarians and they are often quite helpful in this regard. In my opinion (and I've bought books in JF & SF) you may only need to buy them in JS & SS, and even then you would easily get away with borrowing from the library. Similarly, if you know a few friendly postgrads, they can borrow books which, um, might mean absolutely nothing to them. This is handy, given that their borrowing privilages extend to 10 books. But that would be horribly wrong and no-one would ever do that.

Boston

Friendly post Graduates can also take out books from stacks.

Myth: If you get an error when posting, hit try again or what ever the explorer equivalent is. The HTTP post method is called again with the same data and bobs your uncle, the post appears.

Boston

Boston wrote:

Friendly post Graduates can also take out books from stacks.

Myth: If you get an error when posting, hit try again or what ever the explorer equivalent is. The HTTP post method is called again with the same data and bobs your uncle, the post appears.

Heh, it actually appears to be dying whenever I use the quick reply bit. It simply dies (goes to the ISS page) and if I press 'go' again, I get the usual 'this forum is not accepting new posts'. It's happened before that it has appeared and I assume that's what you're talking about.

Huzzah for friendly postgrads!

Edit: Yeah, pressing refresh rather than pressing 'go' again does the job nicely. Cheers.

ApeXaviour

starn wrote:

Staring Science in trinity in oct. Ideally I'd like to pick up my text books now while i still have a full time job/ Looking to do pyscis, maths and geology modules. Can someone tell the core texts for these please

Hey, welcome starn. When I was in JF science the physics and maths' recommended texts were:
University Physics by Young and Freedman
and
Calculus a New Horizon by Anton

Boston wrote:

Doesn't work that way in college. Theres no set of text books you need to go out and buy year to year.

Actually, in first year we were recommended to buy certain text books. Told of deals that were secured in easons etc. Both books above I studied from almost entirely for JF and much of SF. Lecture notes with the above is obviously the ideal, but you can get by on just the books. You can can get by on just using the library, but it's a bit annoying. As the years progress you won't need to buy books as you'll simply be using too many very specialised ones.

Myth wrote:

books you'd buy in first year may be too general for your 4 years of college.

Oh most certainly, whether you choose physics or geology. They will be useful for reference of the basics the odd time.

I was talking to the head of the school of physics last week though, and he was telling me he was seriously thinking of revamping the entire first year course. So I would strongly recommend waiting just incase, as Myth says. These books aren't the cheapest.

Boston

Absoultely, I have books I bought in first year that I still used in forth, and also books I never used. The Library is great in the way that you can get a feel for what is a useless book and what isn't. Every single course in my four years had a recommended text book. Few needed it, and even fewer need me to buy one.

Actually the best Text book I've ever looked at wasn't even on a recommendated list, I jsut found it one day in the Library. I really wanted to buy it but at 200 euro couldn't afford too. Would have been worth every cent though.

But yea, thats another point. For alot of course you'll need little bits out of several books, buying them all just isn't practical.

oconnoao

yep i rushed out and bought all the books recommended for biology, chemistry and maths in JF. The chemistry book was awful, which i realized after a couple of months and havent used at all. biology was good for JF but useless for SF, and maths had an online version which was much cheaper....

All the books are available in the library and you will probably find some other books that you find more practical. If i were you, i wouldnt rush out to spend the 200euro on the books the lecturers recommend....lol i did that...bad idea!

good luck!

paperclip

Repeating what others have said here, hold off to buy the books. I would recommend getting the Schaum's 3,000 for each of your subjects though, I found it very useful and they cover a wide range of topics. You can get them in the library- so again, no need to fork out! Save your money for coffees and photocopying!

ApeXaviour

oconnoao wrote:

The chemistry book was awful, which i realized after a couple of months and havent used at all.

Silberberg??? I found that the very best college level textbook I've ever used. Gan doubt.

balzarywex

they changed the jf chem book to kotz's 'chemistry and chemical reactivity' this year...what a pile of s*** that i wasted good book voucher money on (which apparently i could have spent in hmv...), ended up using Silberberg from the library in the end...

oh contemporary linear algebra is rubbish too. about 40 pages relevant to the course content and i dont know if its useful for sf...

plebQueen

Hey don't buy the physics book, they give ya a free copy when you start

Edwardius

Since when? no fair etc..

Boston

ApeXaviour wrote:

Silberberg??? I found that the very best college level textbook I've ever used. Gan doubt.

Silberberg is the absolute definitive reference books and guide to chemistry, no doubt in my mind. However it is extremely difficult to get into. It doesn't baby you or BS you, it just bang, welcoem to chemistry. I never appreciated Silberberg untill I repeated chemistry in first year. If you want to learn chemistry properly and have things accurately and fully explained, siliberberg is the book.

John

Boston wrote:

Silberberg is the absolute definitive reference books and guide to chemistry, no doubt in my mind. However it is extremely difficult to get into. It doesn't baby you or BS you, it just bang, welcoem to chemistry. I never appreciated Silberberg untill I repeated chemistry in first year. If you want to learn chemistry properly and have things accurately and fully explained, siliberberg is the book.

Agreed. It was only very late in JF that I started to get into it properly. Definitely the best chemistry textbook I've used.

Nietzschean

Dead Ed wrote:

Since when? no fair etc..

aye i think they started that this year, not fair at all, that book was like 60 or 70 quid...not that i'd to pay for it, but i could have spent those vouchers in hmv...

Kevinly_

I say sit and wait. Some of the text books are great and some are uesless as people have said.