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Any europeans here on HN? I had a german professor last semester tell me many schools/teachers don't require students to buy specific textbooks and do homework problem sets in Europe. They just expect their students to understand the material, turn in good labs or essays, and pass the tests. He was obviously criticizing that american college students are spoon-fed their education.

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Indeed. I live in the UK and had no need to buy a single text book throughout my degree (Computer Science). There were usually a few equivalent suggested books for each module. We were free to purchase or borrow any of them or use other sources such as online material.

I bought half a dozen books because they were interesting beyond the course itself, mostly just used the library and online material though.

Each country is different, the German model sounds good.

Here in the UK, you don't buy textbooks until college/university... at school they are provided by the school; apart from that detail sounds more similar to the american system though.

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