Would you...

[bennator]

I don't know how I feel about this. Our campus bookstore has the solutions manual right next to the textbooks in most cases, sometimes saying required on the little card under it. I understand that just copying the answers out of the answer guide is wrong, especially for a grade, but, OTOH, I think they are more useful than that. For example, my orgo professor never gives solutions to problems, so without the manual, I could work all the problems in the text and still not know if I got any right, which would be unhelpful.

[Raistlin]

I don't know how I feel about this. Our campus bookstore has the solutions manual right next to the textbooks in most cases, sometimes saying required on the little card under it. I understand that just copying the answers out of the answer guide is wrong, especially for a grade, but, OTOH, I think they are more useful than that. For example, my orgo professor never gives solutions to problems, so without the manual, I could work all the problems in the text and still not know if I got any right, which would be unhelpful.

I believe there is a difference between checking your answers in the book that everyone has in class, where the teacher knows there are answers in the back [or in another book that the teacher knows about and agrees to], than buying a solutions manual most people don't have and not telling the teacher about it.

[Rainecloud]

I bought a Math solutions manual.

I still got a "D".

[Slothy]

I agree with Unne in pretty much everything he's saying. Doing questions for review and checking your answers is one thing, but if you're being graded on it, even if you've done the work, and then check your answers after before passing it in, you've cheated, and don't deserve a grade other than 0 on the assignment. Every text I've ever had that had answers in the back of the book, didn't have answers to all the questions specifically so that profs can use them for homework assignments. Cheating is cheating, there's no way around it, and no exceptions, and unless your answer solutions come from a legitimate source (ie: text, answer keys sold in the book store, etc.), you're in the wrong.

I also disagree with this argument that you're never going to use this stuff in the future. Even if it's true for you, your school has decided what you need to get your degree, and even if you don't use it later, you need to learn to use it now. If you can't pass a course on your own merits, you don't deserve your degree and the merits it brings, since you didn't pass the course based on your own intelligence and hard work. And besides, you never know for certain if you'll use the stuff you're being tought later on in life. Maybe you'll someday decide to go into a field where you do use what you're learning.

As for the number of people who use what they learn in University being in the single digits, unless you've got some scientific research backing it up, I don't believe it for a second. A lot of what they would teach in engineering and computer science courses, I would imagine many graduates would see again depending on what they go into. Also, being a business student who plans on going into accounting, has worked with an accounting firm, and who's father is an accountant, I can say that the majority of what you learn in financial accounting courses, you will see again if you go on to work with a financial accounting firm. You'll also see a lot of this stuff if you go on to work as an accountant in a company.

And finally, I'm not looking to be rude or tear into you, since you're entitled to your opinion, but you say you want to be a high school math teacher, but if I were a parent I wouldn't want someone who had your attitude about this teaching my kids.

[FF freak]

In my accounting class I'm losing my mind....literally. Sure, if I went looking for an answer guide I could probably find one but I honestly wouldn't know the stuff any better than I did before I bought and used it? So what's the point? Now what I do is I hit up to my accounting teacher to help me out. It takes longer and I'm using up his time but at the end of the day I know accounting better than before. Plus, that's what he's paid for right?