Grad school text books?

I think that it varies a lot, depending on the nature and subject of the class.

When I was a B&M philosophy graduate student at San Francisco State, we usually didn't have textbooks at all. Certainly not the mega-expensive things that you see in undergraduate courses. We usually had a small number of university press paperbacks, commonly collections of scholarly papers on some technical issue. These were often accompanied by stapled together copies of more recent papers, sometimes pre-prints, that the professor usually distributed to the class for free. Sometimes a seminar would be focused on a particular book that had just been published and was creating a stir among professional philosophers. I remember Saul Kripke and Hillary Putnam being treated that way.

My impression is that this might be a more expensive proposition in the sciences and mathematics. At Stanford's bookstore you see those yellow differential-equations-filled Springer monographs on ultra-technical topics with tremendously scary pricetags on them. (Of course, if price is an issue, you don't belong at Stanford.)

At Cal State Dominguez Hills' more literary humanities program, occasionally we had a larger number of readings assigned, more like (but not equal to) what you describe. But they were usually common literary works. If they were translations, they were always standard translations. I almost always found an abundance of cheap dog-eared copies of these for a few bucks in the Berkeley used-bookstores. The professors usually chose books that were readily and inexpensively available.

Another thing... are these books all required? Or have you been handed a bibliography of additional readings that the professor recommends? Every class seems to hand out a list of these. While it's a good idea to read some of them, depending on interest, I don't think that the professor will expect everyone to read all of them.

 

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Billy, thanks for sharing your experiences. I found that very interesting! It's a subject you don't see on the boards very often.

I would expect, naively perhaps, that with the availability of paperless information, material could be exchanged for a very very low cost. Where I used to provide a handout to my students, I now send a pdf file. I wonder how many students actually print out the pages? LOL, maybe I don't want to know! I do understand the necessity for text books, especially in some subjects, but I think an instructor should feel a sense of obligation (in some small way) to the student's pocketbook and general sensibility. The last class I took at TESC required 3 text books. I gritted my teeth and bought them used for $150. Since the class was 6 credits, I justified the cost as $75/3 credits, which would be reasonable. Honest to goodness, each and every page of each and every book was assigned! I'm sure some people hated that, but I felt like we got our money's worth! (Social Psychology, great class by the way) How many text books go unassigned and unopened???

When I first wrote this thread, the courses I looked at did call their lists "required reading," but a few had very common books that many people (ok, book worms like myself) might already own or could find easily at a library or even online at www.gutenburg.com for free. The course I ended up registering for was, I think, very flexible. The instructor gave us "choice" on one book's edition, and another was a simple paperback that I found for $5 online. The course's primary text was about $80 used. My total with shipping for the entire package of books will only set me back $100, so I'm not complaining too loudly.