Finding Best Books for Engineering Students at IST Lisbon

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the challenges faced by engineering students at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon in finding reliable and high-quality textbooks for their studies. Participants explore various resources and strategies for identifying suitable academic materials across different engineering subjects.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses difficulty in selecting the best textbooks due to extensive bibliographies and personal biases of instructors towards certain books.
  • Another participant suggests consulting the PF Textbook Bibliography, noting that many universities tend to recommend books authored by their own faculty.
  • There is a mention of MIT OpenCourseWare being potentially more beneficial than traditional resources like Oxford or Cambridge, despite claims that no textbooks are required.
  • A participant provides a link to the PF Bibliography and recommends exploring Yale Open Course and similar resources for alternatives to MIT OCW.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the best resources for textbooks, with multiple competing views on the effectiveness of different academic platforms and bibliographies remaining evident.

Contextual Notes

Some participants reference specific institutions and their bibliographic practices, but there is no agreement on the overall quality or accessibility of the resources mentioned. The discussion reflects a variety of personal experiences and opinions regarding textbook selection.

tsuwal
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I'm a Engineering student at "Instituto Superior Tecnico" in Lisbon (it's capital), renowned in Portugal for being its best engineering school. I have a hard time finding the best books in each subject since the bibliography is very extensive most of the times, or the teacher just chooses his or his friend's book. Finding the best book in each subject is very important for me since my course is very demanding and I need to find the best books in each field so I can take maximum profit out of my study. Also, one of my favorite hobbies is to learn about new science fields. However, even in those situations, finding a good book on which I know I can rely is a difficult task and makes the difference between going forward or turning my head in another direction. Besides, there are so many books it's difficult to choose and they are expensive!

So, in order to find good books, I've tried to cross reference with the bibliographies of other Engineering Schools. I know I can search on Amazon, but that as some disadvantages. If you don't know beforehand a good book on the subject, it will be a difficult task to find one, I think Amazon is best for comparison. Even though now Amazon has a top on each field, it's difficult to measure how "academic" the book is.

On that line of thought, I looked at my faculty web-page and thought "My faculty web page is very well organized and easily accessible. I wish I found a Faculty whose website was as good as mine" and it's written in English!
Check it out here:
http://www.ist.utl.pt/en/education/
(choose the course then click on course web pages on the left)
For example, here is the curriculum for Physics, if you click in one subject you can easily access important information like syllabus (program) and bibliography:
https://fenix.ist.utl.pt/cursos/meft/course-web-pages


So, I started searching, beginning with the Ivy League schools. However, I was disappointed because all of them have almost inaccessible/inaccessible bibliography or recommend their own materials.

And that's the reason why I'm posting this, if you faculty has this information accessible please tell me what your faculty is! I would be a big help, and now you guys have my faculty webpage..
 
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Give a look at PF Textbook Bibliography. Most of the Universities use the books by their own Professors & Press. Google Oxford & Cambridge they are accessible to all.
 


I think MIT opencourseware, in spite of saying "This OCW Scholar course is self-contained and no textbook is required." often is better than oxford or cambridge website.. What is PF textbook bibliographhy?
 


tsuwal said:
I think MIT opencourseware, in spite of saying "This OCW Scholar course is self-contained and no textbook is required." often is better than oxford or cambridge website.. What is PF textbook bibliographhy?
PF Bibliography
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=638547

If you want something like MIT OCW then look on Yale Open Course and others also.
 

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