What about people who have a hormonal problem ? Some people are lazy or overeat , sure , but some people have a really hard time losing weight . Should we shame them too ? <| sep |> When I studied engineering I think there was only one a booklet of formulae that was about 5 that was heavily pushed , and we really did benefit from having that . Otherwise they just gave us a list of a few books that would be helpful if we needed more assistance , none were compulsory and they were in a similar price range to those you mention factoring for age this was the early 1990 s . The most expensive one was The Art Of Electronics my first electronics text book , which I think was about 30 , but I think it costs about 5070 now . I did buy it and I still have it , it was a really handy book and I dipped into it for many years when I needed refreshers on things I ' d not applied before .