A creative way to tell a student how to download a free book while telling them “not to”. The professor probably just wants to teach and is as tired of the university bullshit as the students.
Don’t you have university library? I did most of the recommend readings through my studies and found them all there (excepted for one). Ended up being a two reference books which prove themselves to be worth it.
The best investment I made in textbooks was the class that wanted a Schaum’s Outline book, $15 brand new and still a book I use for occasional linear algebra reference.
In one of my uni courses, I found a free copy of the required textbook and posted a link to it on the forum in the LMS saying “Hey prof, is this the correct textbook?” By the time the prof responded and politely took my message down a week later, everyone had helped themselves to a copy.
Selfishness and greed. Anyone that stands up stands alone, and the others are quick to lick a boot as they grovel for scraps. For some inconceivable reason too many consider this preferable to standing together and working to make things better.
It’s not selfishness and greed so often as it is fear and ignorance. Education remedies the ignorance and steels people against the fear that keeps them from working together against a seemingly more powerful force.
North American here. Funny how it’s very much less “which is it?” And more “Yeah. Basically.”
We’ve been culturally domesticated to not cause trouble for our bosses / schools / etc. If the State steps in after you cause trouble for enterprise, it’s usually to kick you back into your place.
We might not live in a State dictatorship, but that only matters so far, because that State enables many tiny, petty dictatorships that more directly affect your life and run amok unopposed.
Somehow people accept petty tyranny in everything from corporations to universities to shifts at the burger joint. They’ll get all riled up that some politician they never met is bawking about foreign policy, but their tail is tucked firmly when their company tells them they can’t get sick days and arriving a minute late is a fireable offense.
Many have bought the lies of rugged individualism and competition. “An insult to one is…well, that really sucks for you but I told you to just stay quiet. I’m just working hard doing what I’m told.”
Like someone said before me: Even the most rebellious in us think twice about making our move, because many people simply think “That’s how it is.” And don’t believe it can get any better.
There’s not a lot of examples of collective action winning in recent history, so a lot of people don’t even know how to begin to push back in the first place, besides writing an angry tweet or two.
A professor at my university tried that, but the students quite quickly made a huge fuss, got the principals office involved, and the universities lawyers informed said professor that what she was doing was illegal, and that she should stop before she got any more trouble. She stopped.
Possibly a poor translation from my side: I’m referring to the “head office” of the university, i.e. the group of people under the direct leadership of the principal, who have the highest administrative authority at the university.
I paid $1000 for books my first semester of college back in 2007. I felt so burnt and violated I never bought another textbook. I made it through the rest of undergrad, a masters, and a PhD in biochemistry by checking out books from the library, borrowing textbooks from friends, and going sailing. When I taught I made it a point to teach my students about all the ways they can avoid becoming a victim like myself.
Our profit margin demands you buy over-priced books from our shop
College material monopolies should be illegal, just like all other monopolies. Want to give students an education in the real world? Let the free market determine textbook prices.
This reminds me of when Weird Al told Canadian (or maybe Australian?) fans who wanted to watch his movie, “there’s Very Probably No way to do this. I know you probably have a TORRENT of questions, but I don’t have time to answer them right now.”
Once in a while maybe you will feel the urge To break international copyright law By downloading MP3’s from file sharing sites Like Morpheus or Grokster or LimeWire or KaZaA
I often usually post the chapters we use for my classes in case students haven’t bought the book yet. I also have a hard $60 limit for books that I use.
I once had a class where, day one, the professor said something like, “If you don’t want to buy the book, that’s fine with me. I can’t tell you where to find a copy, but maybe one of your classmates can.” Someone raised their hand and started rattling off a few useful websites.
I had a stats professor who told us to not buy the book. He would print out hand outs and gave them to us every class. He was super nice. One time a girl brought her bunny to class because she had to give it medicine on a schedule and he made her do show and tell lol.
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