Textbooks

For the immunology part of this course, the required textbook was written by one of the faculty teaching the course. The book was fantastic in that it covered everything exactly to the level of detail that we needed to know for this course. It pretty much replaced our usual syllabus, and in terms of information relevant to the test, it had a high signal-to-noise ratio. However, I didn't like the book as much as my classmates did. It was an incredibly simple primer, and it left out some of the most exciting details of immunology. Granted we didn't have to know that, but I usually expect textbooks to have more depth than required for those interested in it. I also started wondering about the role a faculty-written book plays in the curriculum that the faculty person teaches. It's a double edged sword, really. The textbook will emphasize those points the professor thinks are salient, but it may not objectively be the best textbook out there.