tonysophia

Yeah, so I'm wondering how much an "optional" book is actually used in class, A book being, say for example the Oxtoby (New Low Price) Princ Mod Chem (5th) book that's used and selling for 121.50 At UCLA? I know we can buy it at half.com but what do we actually do with optional books? Is it just extra practice? And does anyone highly recommend buying them?

flopsy

The reality of "optional" status varies greatly with classes. For Chem 20A, the Oxtoby textbook is genuinely optional since the course reader is comprehensive, but for the Math 31A-33B series, the so-called "optional" solutions manuals that accompany the textbooks help tremendously with doing the homework assignments.

tonysophia

Thanks! So I'm assuming that those custom kit things for Chem 20A & B (seeing that they didn't post a price or anything on the site) will be available to us when we start class?

CyberDragoon

So there's no real reason to buy the Oxtoby book for Chem 20A regardless of who is teaching it? Where would we get those custom kits though?

flopsy

When I took Chem 20A, there were no custom kits, so I don't know about their usefulness.

Citan

i would refrain from buying optional stuff until you go to the class and see if you really need it or not

wallyfus

when do we go buy course readers? are those optional?

ucapplicant05

First week of the quarter. Most likely not because the professors actually made and mass reproduced them through designated suppliers. General rule of thumb: wait until the first lecture to find out what you really need.

Brandnew2

I'm a business econ major and through all my classes (GEs included) I've never bought a single optional book, and it's never hurt me. Not sure about sciences though.

ckings86

most of the optional books in the sciences are the solution manuals... having them can help you when it comes to studying but, i've gone through classes (the entire chem 30 series) with out the solution manuel and have had decent grades.