Why to know about study materials
Students in colleges and universities use books and other study materials for many reasons. These reasons include studying for assessments that come in the form of written examinations, research work for assignments and most often to merely supplement on the understanding of the subject or concept taught during lectures.
This therefore mandates that one going to such institutions be knowledgeable about the various study materials so that he/she could gauge and prepare for the cost of purchasing them or the gadgets that could be used to store and view them. As matter of fact, cost of study materials is an important aspect to fully understand before you go into school when it comes to you enjoying your time in college or university and also successfully completing your studies without being surprised at how much it costs to have study materials. Definitely at some point you will have to spend on a good phone, good laptop computer or both as well as spend on some hard copy or soft copy books depending on what you are looking to go and study.
The different study materials used by the students include prescribed and recommended textbooks as per course in the various programs offered, PowerPoint presentations and pamphlets prepared by their lecturers, published research papers, scientific and social journals and, lecture videos.
Text books
The textbooks are the most used. These may either be soft copy (accessible via gadgets such as phones, kindles and computers) or otherwise be hard copy (print or physical books) in nature. On a general basis the soft copies are cheaper, more accessible and very easy to distribute using messaging and sharing applications. Additionally, soft copy books are mostly downloaded freely on websites but there are some books that have to be bought. On the other hand, print textbooks are quite hard to come by and to a student’s eye, very expensive. Most of these books cost between K500 to K1, 500. Although this may be the case, institutions may have some of these books in their libraries to a limited number. Textbooks will either be prescribed or recommended by a lecturer and as such will contain information relevant for the level at which a student is and can therefore be trusted. At times, some text books are mandatory for you to buy them, hence you need to be ready for this when planning for your school expenses with your sponsor. You can ask students already studying what you want to study to have an idea the requirements in this regard.
Presentations
PowerPoint presentations and pamphlets, as earlier stated, are in most cases prepared by the lecturers and distributed to the students. This distribution may be done before the giving of a lecture, during or more commonly after the lecture has been given. For the fact that these are prepared by the lecturers themselves, these materials are free to be used by the students. Furthermore, they are a very good guide of what a lecturer might want the students to focus on even if the students are to do further reading. It is worth noting that having these PowerPoint presentations is not a substitute for attending lectures. This is because lecturers more often than not make mention of very important (exam-worthy) points during lectures without including them in the presentations themselves. Presentations can also be downloaded on the internet or viewed from applications such as SlideShare which includes presentations on many topic posted/shared by different people. However, sometimes, lecturers can produce special study material that they sell to students, which in most cases are useful.
Published papers and journals
Published research papers and, scientific and social journals are frequently used for assignments when an argument requires referenced support. These papers and journals are written or published by individuals or group with expertise on the subject and can therefore be trusted if obtained from a reputable platform. The papers and journals are either online accessible or in print (rare). Online resources can be free or require payment to be viewed. Examples of platforms where these can be found include Elsevier, PubMed, Academia.edu and ScienceOpen to list only a few.
Lecture videos
Lecture videos, compared to the other study materials, are a more passive way of studying per say. Some institutions create lecture videos for their students especially the distance education or part-time students. Students can access these videos on a student portal by login into the student account. However, most lecture videos are mostly acquired on the internet especially on the YouTube platform. These lecture videos are given by different people who may or may not be experts in the subject. They include in-depth lectures on a topic, reviews and summaries or memory aides. Owing to the fact that most of these are obtained on YouTube, there is no cost to view them except that one has to have a working data bundle or Wi-Fi connectivity. Since these videos are not usually given by the actual lecturers, a student has to be careful and ask which ones are reliable both in level of data content and accuracy of information.
Check out our list of 108 tertiary education courses offered in Zambia and where you can study them: zeyuni.com/blog/