reference manuals

[sciguy125]

I just came upon something new in my academic career. My Thermodynamics professor is letting us use our books on tests because she feels that we'll have reference manuals when we are working in industry. (We can't use our notes, however, because it's been her experience that notes are too messy to be used in this manner anyway) It seems to be a reasonable explanation to me. I've had teachers give open book tests, or even let us use books on all the tests, but this is the first time that any of them have given this reason. It's usually because they are more interested in having us learn how to integrate rather than memorizing the obscure integral to arctan, or [insert other appropriate example here that isn't in my head right now].

I came here wanting to ask a question, but I'm not really sure what it is I want to know. I guess I'm just looking for general comments on the situation...