My Undergrad in Textbooks (the summer semester to my final (5th) year)

Top: books I used in Russia
Bottom: book I bought in Russia

The Russian department at MUN has a program which runs every other year (well, when I was there it did) in which we could go to St. Petersburg, Russia in the summer and earn course credits at the same time. Out of people who signed up for the summer courses there were only 6 people who signed up for actually going overseas and doing stuff there. Our instructor (from MUN) gave us some reading to do beforehand and it was from the book on the top right (St. Petersburg by Arthur L. George). That book was not easy to obtain as it was no longer published in North America but somehow one of they guys on the trip managed to find a copy in Dom Knigi. I had to get the book online through the rare and used collection and luckily it arrived before the postal strike. I hated how I had to summarize the book as one of my assignments but I did learn a lot of interesting things about Russian history centered around St. Petersburg (Peter the Great liked Dutch things and shipbuilding, the city was named after St. Peter). The top left book was the workbook used for the Russian language classes given to us for free (though I'm sure it was included in the cost of the course). Not only it teaches grammar and vocab but if I purchased the disk it might have helped me with the pronunciation and intonation sections. The book with the robot on it is meant for beginners in Russian but the reason I got it was of the pictures explaining things as well as for practice and review.

film text books and sociology
course textbook

My fifth year I didn't spend too much on textbooks as each semester I had three courses. The fall semester I took a course in Russian film, historical linguistics, and anthropology-sociology course on media and mass communication. I have never taken a film course before and a lot of the work in that course, besides discussing the films themselves, involved discussing elements of film like mise-en-scene and the significance of long takes hence the David Bordwell book on film. Film analysis isn't really my cup of tea but after taking that course almost every film I see I seem to do analyses of my own (if anyone sees the movie Limitless, take note of how the lighting changes when Bradley Cooper is on the drug and when he is not). Historical lingustics (the continuation of the 3rd year course now at the 4th year level) reused the same red textbook at times but most of the material was from photocopies and notes the instructor made many years ago. The fall semester was also my introduction to the world of sociology courses (even though I just took the one). The reason I took that course was out of curiosity as well as having something to balance out my schedule (films for my Russian film course were on Fridays from 3-5, the sociology course was on Mondays and Wednesdays around the same time). Not sure how much I've read of the book (but reading it helped in understanding class discussions) but it opened me up to how mass media works.

English Grammar and phonetics textbooks

The winter semester I took a course in phonetics, phonology, and English grammar. Phonology mostly involved signing out books from put on reserve in the library as the instructor provided sheets for us to print off. The English textbook has an interesting cover (it's orange) but I didn't like the book that much (didn't read much of it either). The book was published in 1999 and mentions English as "on its way to becoming the official language of the European Union" and MS-DOS in one of its examples ("The new MS-DOS is incredibly fast (predicative adjective)"). Even though standard English hasn't changed much at least make a revised edition of the book that uses examples that are more attuned to modern times and a younger generation. The phonetics textbook is a great one that I'll treasure. The reason I like this textbook is it gives instructions on how to make the sounds not found in English as well as how human speech is produced.

That's all for my textbooks and it has been quite the journey. At least I made it out alive.

My Undergrad in Textbooks (second half of 3rd year to my 4th year)

"Crime & Punishment"
"Eugene Onegin"
"Fathers and Sons"
"Gogol Short Stories"

Continuing from where I left off . . .
The latter half of my 3rd year was filled mainly with Russian course (3 of them) while the other two were Latin (continuing from the fall semester) and another
Linguistics course (which was basically course notes again). There was a textbook for my Russian language course, Golosa 2, but my instructor for the course again does not like the Golosa books so he made that optional. As for the other two Russian courses I took that semester one was a literature course and the other was a special course that looked at vocabulary building. The only new book I got for that course was the book of Gogol short stories. My uncle did lend me some of his book (another anthology of Gogol short stories and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina) but the reason I got the book from the bookstore had to do with stories being covered in the course. In the end I ended up using both books when I had to do an essay comparing the works of Gogol with Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. I was able to pass the course only having read Onegin, some of Gogol's stories, Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, and a little bit of Crime and Punishment
   

A book on Russian culture
used for vocab building

        For the vocabulary building course there was one textbook (the black one with the bird-like creature on it). The book wasn't used much but what from I've seen of it, it's mostly on Russian culture and the things you would find in Russia and at the same time it would build your vocabulary (there's a page where it names parts of the body as well as a small section on swearing). I still have this book and when I have the time and patience would like to look through it again.

3 Russian textbooks, 2 linguistics text-
books, and a history textbook.

My fourth year was the beginning of the linguistics heavy stuff. The intro to language acquisition was the only course that did not have a textbook as the instructor just e-mailed everyone the notes. I didn't like the history course I took that much, and textbook usage was pretty much "read on your own time and we'll discuss the topic next class". This was also the year that the Russian textbooks changed. The main one was a book that I believe was made in the Soviet Era as the photos seem to be dated and the stories seems to revolve around Russian kids in America. The other books that were for the course were mostly reference/practice materials. The only textbooks that were of use were the phonology and syntax books as I can pick up random words from random languages.

Semantics, Morphology,
Historical Linguistics,
Old Church Slavonic

The second half of my 4th year I somewhat stopped taking Russian language courses because there was none offered that semester. (Technically I challenged that course for credit so there was no set textbook, just whatever materials I had with me). On the other hand I took a course in Old Church Slavonic which happens to be like the grandfather (maybe even great grandfather) to languages Russian, Polish, Belarussian, Ukranian, Slovenian, Czech-Slovak, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Sorbian . . . and I may be missing one or two but you know what I mean. The textbook was chosen on a basis that more than half the class were not linguistics students (since this was listed as a 4th year level linguistics course) and the book was small and cheap (can't remember the cost though). What sucked about the book was the font used was really small and hard to read the Cyrillic and there were some grammatical errors in the examples (in which I remember the instructor pointing things out). I also had that same instructor for historical linguistics which is basically the change of language over time. I'm not sure if I liked that textbook or not, but maybe if I look through it again I might find something that I like. The morphology book is not bad but I hated using it in the course, mainly because we had to look at the morphology of the language featured at the end of each chapter: Kujamaat Joola. I don't seem to have any interest in Niger-Congo languages could be the reason why and if I had change something about the course, is to do a morphology project on a language of choice. The semantics book is quite perplexing. The course description calls for an "introduction to the study of linguistic meaning" but instead the course had to do with logic stuff (the statement is true if x and y =1) as well as some lambda calculus (don't make me go there!). I'd say that the book is somewhat interesting, minus all the math parts.

And there's more to cover. Up next: my summer course and final year

My Undergrad in Textbooks (1st year to half of my 3rd year)

Greetings you who happened to stumble upon my blog post. It's almost official. I'm done my undergrad. The reason I say almost as I still have that pending status next to my application form. Anyway it took me 5 years, yes 5 years, to get here and if anyone hasn't picked it up, I switched from a bachelor of science to a bachelor of arts degree hence the amount of time spent there.

My first year I took the 3 core science courses (chemistry, physics, biology), calculus, and English in the fall semester and in the winter I traded biology for French.

English textbook, French text-
book, Russian textbook

The majority of my first year textbooks were sold as when I took courses the next year there were better books that came along. I also remember buying the majority of them new as the textbooks that were used that year were new editions or new course texts and in order to follow along my way of thinking was I should get the new books. One book I didn't really have to get was my first year English textbook for the fall semester as the instructor for that course only used like 2 or 3 short stories and poems out of there while the rest was from some other books he had. I pretty much kept this book for the stories and poems in case I feel like I want to read some of them one day.

My second year since I fulfilled my English requirement I decided to fill that slot with Russian. I did continue on with chemistry and French, redid a math course, and for a little while did some more physics (I eventually dropped the physics course). That year I bought two of my textbooks used from the student union run used book sale (even for used books they were not cheap as there was a commission added to the asking price of the seller plus tax) and one thing I noticed about science textbooks is the more advance the course the thicker and heavier the books become. I think I remember trying to sell my French textbook but I don't think anyone bought it (maybe there wasn't an instructor that used the book at the time I was selling it). It does have nice colourful pictures and if I want to review/expand my French I guess I could always go back to it. As for the Russian textbook, I kept that until a new textbook was required for the second half of the second year level Russian course. I remember my instructor (which I had for every Russian course I took except the film one) calling this book "crapola" at one point and saying that the book is meant for those who have some rudimentary knowledge of Russian along the lines of "enough to communicate with your Russian-speaking relative." This was also the year I took my first steps into linguistics. The course I took (introduction to phonetics and phonology) did not come with a textbook but instead a course notes package.

Linguistics textbook (on the English
language), Latin textbook, Irish-English
dictionary

My third year at university was when I switched over to linguistics. I didn't take very many linguistics courses that year since I was sort of starting anew (technically the Irish language course was offered by the department of linguistics of overall I took 3 linguistics courses, 1 Russian and 1 classics). Since arts degrees required a minor (a subject of secondary concentration) I chose Russian as I did very well in the 1st year level courses. I could've made Russian my major but linguistics seems to have more career options so I went along with that. Textbooks that were used/reused were for my Russian and two of my linguistics courses. The red textbook pictured was kind of interesting not in the terms of content but that it had pages missing. They weren't torn out but something went wrong during the printing of this particular textbook. The Latin textbook was bought new and is also a keeper because I enjoyed learning it and maybe one day might want to re-educate myself. Also the textbook has some interesting fun facts and mentions Monty Python at one point. The Irish course I only took it in the Fall semester as in the winter I'd wanted to keep the same Latin instructor and I wasn't all too interested in learning Irish (yet I ended up doing well in the course). The textbook I had for the instructor that year was just a dictionary as she provided the worksheets.

And since I've babbled too long on here, I'll post the rest of my undergrad through textbooks in another post.

Advice for the young grasshopper starting university -- Adjusting to campus life (and a little blurb on textbooks)

Roommates
Student Residences
Making Connections

One thing I like about university is how some days you don't have to get up early. This is of course depending on what one's schedule is like. Also depending on what type of degree you're heading off for you may have all your classes in one day to having one day free with no classes. You may have classes all morning but have some sort of 1.5 to 3 hour lecture at 7pm. Whatever your schedule is like one thing less to worry is being sent to detention for arriving late or skipping lectures and you don't need permission to leave the room while someone is talking. But still . . .

• Be respectful to both the instructor and the other students.

Even though you may be bored with the lecture and start talking to your buddy the lecturer has the right to kick you out of the room for being disruptive. Also if you do decide to leave early or come in late do it discreetly as some in the room may be bothered the constant opening and closing of the door. A course may count participation as part of the course so whether you ask a lot of questions in class or sit quietly in the corner showing up for class may count towards that.

Although attendance is not necessarily taken every day there are certain days which you CANNOT and MUST NOT miss UNLESS YOU ARE ILL OR HAVE A DEATH IN THE FAMILY:

• Labs
• Midterms, quizzes and tests
• Giving a presentation

A doctor's note or a death certificate will excuse you from these things. Not sure if any other university has this policy but missing/skipping out on labs could mean failing the lab portion of a course. Sometimes when a lab isn't scheduled it may become a help session for assignments. If these sessions don't count for grades it's up to you to attend them or not but at least here people from the help centre will cater specifically to your course whereas at the help centre they cater to all levels.

Speaking of help centres these places are useful when you're stuck on a problem or need help understanding something like why the derivative of x^5 is 5x^4 (it's been a while since I touched calculus and probably would not touch it with a 10 foot pole (Edit January 2012: A semantics course I took during the Winter 2011 semester involved something called lambda calculus. My 10 foot pole must've been too short. Mind you this is a 3rd year level linguistics course and not a beginner calculus course.)). Having trouble with <insert language here>? Unless your friend speaks that language and is willing to help go to a help centre! Some language courses have conversation classes which are free (and may be counting towards your grade just for attending them). Help centres may also have books that the library may not have. I don't think first year labs require too much research for the questions but if they do the help centre is one place to go. Help centres don't run 24/7 so instead of heading off for a 4-hour nap use those breaks between classes to try to visit the help centres.

Some courses require books. Some books you can get after the first class like a textbook but some books, like lab manuals, you need before the first class or lab session. Now some instructors on the first day jump right into the textbook so if you're the type who wants to keep up on things you can buy the book. Some teachers say that the book is optional so if you really feel the need to get the textbook then get it, otherwise save your money.

Textbook are expensive brand new. Unlike secondary school (I am assuming it's the same for all secondary school otherwise tell me) the books are provided for you as they are paid for by the school and the only time you have to pay for the text is if the book is lost or damaged. So if you are strapped for cash:

• Share of borrow from a friend or sibling
• Buy it used

With the first option if you have a relative that has taken the course or is taking the same course at the same you can share and probably won't cost you a thing. Your friend may or may not charge you but that too is an option but if your friend lives in another part of town or in a different dorm room you may end up getting any work done that involves the book. The library may also carry a copy of the book (even older editions) but there is the lending period to consider and the number of copies available so your best bet is to have your own copy.

If you're someone who is concerned about the environment getting a used book is one of those benefits. The drawback to getting a used book is either one of two things:

• The book came out with a new edition in which all older editions are deemed useless
• The department decided to change the textbook this year and are basing the course on said textbook

Sometimes instructors may allow you to use an older edition or the old book but double check with them first. When buying used you can either go to a used book store (whether it's the one on campus or around the city) or from other students. The difference is that buy from other students you're not paying any tax (unless the person you're buying from decides to but I haven't encountered anyone who does that) but usually cash only.

That's all I have to say now that you should be fully integrated into campus life. Anything missing just mention it.