It may just be me, but does anyone else see a conflict of interests in the prof teaching the course and MAKING you buy HIS book even though you don't actually need it for the class? I am assuming that he gets some type of money from it so I would think that would be a conflict of interests. I always thought that buying books was more of a suggestion, not an order, and in this case, you don't even have a chance to buy one cheap off Amazon or Ebay...

yeah, its bullshit. I had to spend 30 bucks on that PDF file which I didn't use once and I couldn't resell either.

I also was under the impression that textbooks are optional, and if you want to have the possibility of doing horrible in the class because you don't have a textbook, thats your option.


I'm taking Macro too, and had to spend 80 bucks on their textbook too. It's an actual book, but its still written by the econ professors. At least I can sell it back for something. And it's not even a good book, all David Hentzel does is stand in front of the class and criticize the book and say how bad it is.

Yeah, its a crock of shit, but you have to admire the balls he has to use that buisness model.

How on Earth does he make you buy it? Does he come around and make sure you have it on the first day or what?

Yeah, I agree that this guy needs to get over himself. I've had profs go out of their way to save their classes money by letting us use the old edition if we still have it or sell it back if it turns out we don't need it. Even had one who only needed two passages out of the book and got in an argument with the school when we all tried to sell it back. Granted, he's got a reason, albeit a selfish one, for you to buy his book. The least he could do is incorporate just a little into the classroom. Do you have to use another textbook for the course? Is he the only one who teaches 121? If so, it seems like this should be covered by law - you're forced into buying something or you fail? That doesn't seem legal. Even in other classes you don't have to buy the book if you don't want to, you'd just be well advised to get it for your education's sake. Doesn't seem to apply here.

By the way, if this were a school more geared towards liberal arts, I would understand his suggesting his students to keep it so they can refer back to it. There is no point in making an engineer waste his money on that (even if he can sell it back for 1/6 the price).

when i had the class they you couldnt get your homework graded if you didnt purchase the pdf.

That's how it is still... except we've only had two homework assignment this entire time, and he hasn't handed either back. I don't think I've even looked at the "textbook" portion of the pdf. The class is ridiculously easy and his lectures cover everything that will be on the exams, not to mention that he repeats everything at least three times for those that can't seem to get it the first time.

ya thats exactly how it was when i had the class. several people from my class, including myself met with the econ head and they are pretty unwilliing to change their policy on the book.

It is an E-book that you have to buy through the bookstore and if you don't, he says he will drop you from the course... So thirty bucks for a .pdf that you can't sell and don't even need.

So, wait, the bookstore tells him who and who doesn't buy his PDF file?

Your .pdf says your name at the bottom and if you don't turn it in with your name on it, you won't get a grade. I think people just photoshop it anyway though...

But he keeps letting on like he is "helping" the students buy fucking them over and not allowing them to buy it much cheaper from other sources...

When I took the course I bought it through the econ department. Your name is literally written down when you buy it on a class list. I got the impression that bad things would happen to me if I didn't buy it.

We used it once for one homework assignment.

I like Park a lot, but that was some serious bull*.

How can you like him? We spent an entire semester learning about supply/demand and price and how they are all three related. You only spend a few weeks learning V=IR in circuits before moving on to more important stuff.

Ghostscript, group buys one textbook, rest modify the pdf file to have their names.

Not that easy, since I'm pretty sure that they look at a list to see if you actually purchaced it.

I didn't say I liked econ 121. I have had another class with him. He is a pretty smart and likable guy.