Schaum's Outline of Differential Equations

bad notation and unilluminating exercises

First, it must be said that the Schaum Outline series provides an inexpensive way for students to get more practice and be able to have check their answers. In general, I recommend these texts. That said, I used this as a supplement to a DE class I taught and it was such a pain. The notation is nonstandard, symbols for Bessel functions are downright wrong and things like this. The application exercises were more focused on coverting from English units to SI units than on the variety of application problems. To add to the fun, the cgs system is also thrown into the mix. Granted, engineers and the like need to be able to switch, but that's not the point of a DE class. It is nice to have sections on the Laplace transform and first-order systems and most exercises are ok, if repetitive. Students will have to work hard to keep the notation straight and not confuse themselves. I would not use this in another class.