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I've been a long-time reader and very very occasional poster on KTM. In the last month, I decided to go back to graduate school in engineering, 18 years after graduating from law school and 22 years after my last math or science class.
The head of the math department at the university I'll be attending suggested that I start my prep work with Schaum's College Algebra. So, I can tell you that these books are well regarded, at least in some circles.
Great to know.
I'm hoping Dale will keep us posted on his studies in grad school (in his spare time, of course).
10 comments:
I have 9 dusty old Schaum's Outline Series books on my shelf. None of them were required texts for any of my classes. They are extremely dense and require a very motivated reader. You might say that they are more like reference or review books, not teaching books.
I'm looking at one called "Advanced Mathematics for Engineers and Scientists". The first chapter is called "Review of Fundamental Concepts" and starts with explaining Real Numbers: Natural Numbers, Integers, Rational Numbers, and Irrational Numbers. Next come the basic identities. By page 3, it's reviewing cosh and sinh functions, and by page five, you have an overview of integration by parts. No fluff here. There are lots of worked problems, but it's not a teaching or learning text. It's a relearning or a supplement text.
umm ... steveh?
maybe that's why they call it
"advanced"? ... there are entire
volumes of the series devoted
to some of the topics you mention.
and very likely any one of 'em
would be a better textbook
than seven-eighths of the texts
in actual use (conservatively).
you've evidently been drinking
publishing industry kool-aid
and should know better.
Hi V!
(I think that's you --- )
So I gather you're no fan of college textbooks.
SIGH
I developed a rule, last year when I was looking for books on how to write, that K-12 textbooks are universally bad.
But I was thinking college textbooks were OK -
Is that completely wrong?
"...you've evidently been drinking
publishing industry kool-aid
and should know better."
Did I say that I liked other texts better? I wasn't implying that at all. I like Schaum's. I was just warning that although they give you lots of good examples, they move right along. I would be more interested in finding one of the other 1/8th that you talk about.
"But I was thinking college textbooks were OK - "
Most of my graduate engineering courses used no textbook. A few were written by the professor giving the course, but that was no indication of anything.
College textbooks don't necessarily suffer from the same issues as K-12 textbooks (or workbooks), but many are just awful. That's when I developed my theory that when I couldn't understand something, it wasn't me, it was them. I would then search for just the right book. It's amazing when you find one.
I always liked Schaums as a review or to find worked problems, but I never liked them as a primary learning source of new material.
sorry; shouldn't have assumed
steveh to've been making any claims
about *non*-shaum's-outline books.
things've been getting
pretty bad in lower-division
college courses ... statistics
is probably the worst, but i've
had a lot more exposure to
the remedial algebra stuff
(and math-for-poets books).
the usual stuff: page-splatter
and a pervasive "never mind
getting it right; it would only
confuse the little darlings" attitude;
weedlike growth in all three
physical dimensions; useless
damn "supplements" that add
to the expense; you know ...
calculus books and "up" are still
useful though it would bygolly
help a great deal if you didn't
need a forklift to move around
with one ... if (what i suppose
will never be) i were ever again
to have the authority to select
my own text, i'd use a shaum's
without hesitation. i've seen
the complex variables one used
(junior/senior level) and once
used some high-school level one
myself (along with rudy rucker's
_mind_tools_ -- in one of those
math-for-poets deals i mentioned --
i'm embarrassed to find that
i don't remember the title ...
it's not on the shelf here ...).
then there's dover.
it almost makes you
glad to be alive.
v (right).
I love Dover!!! For music too. And they're so inexpensive. They offer must-have classics. Ooooh. I get all warm and fuzzy.
Many college level textbooks are generally awful these days. It's the industry: why are they offering another book? Because someone needs to make money, not because another book is actually an improvement.
Also, the phenomenon in college texts just as in high school ones of several "editions" is that the later editions have less content than the original. You want to read the 2nd or 3rd edition of a college text--one that has corrected the typos and errors, but hasn't yet watered down the content with asides, graphics, etc.
Dover books are REALLY nice because they are CHEAP! but they tend not to have enough problems or solutions to really learn the material unless you are using them as a supplement. That said, some of the finest physics and math books I've ever read were Dover books.
That's when I developed my theory that when I couldn't understand something, it wasn't me, it was them.
I love it!
Reading C's Earth Science book has been a trip.
Every once in awhile I'll reading something (well, actually, more than every once in awhile) and think: I have no idea what I've just read.
V - what do you think of Bittinger, Liall, etc??
From afar I've thought they looked OK...
how am I going to learn statistics?
When the time comes, I mean.
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