Hi,

I'm a international postgraduate student from the United States. I'm going to be attending an MLitt program at a university in Scotland for a year. My question has to do with the books required for the courses I will be taking.

In the US, the teachers usually place an order with the local bookstore(s) and I would go collect the required texts a couple weeks before class started. Also, usually there are only 7 or so required texts, maybe a little more for a graduate course. My MLitt course adviser emailed me what I'm assuming is a syllabus or course description for each of the courses I will be taking (literature based). The "required texts" and "secondary reading" listed for each weekly seminar just about equals what I would normally read for one class in one semester here in the US (10-15 texts). Is this normal? If so, is one usually expected to have their own copy of each text? I do plan on checking many of these books out from the library, but I'm also assuming that I won't be the only one interested in the same book!

Also, the books stores in the US also do what is called "deferment," where the student purchases their books and the balance is automatically deducted when their financial aid, loans, or scholarships come through. Do university bookstores in the UK do anything similar?

Thanks!