Why Are College Text Books So Boring?

I was busy minding my own business today when one of my coworkers engaged me in a very important conversation. He mentioned that there are some changes happening in the group that will require me to study up on my probability and statistics knowledge. There are one or two things that I remember about the subject from my days in college, most importantly that the O-ring failure on the Space Shuttle Challenger was a major topic of discussion. We also learned that lotteries are a tax for people that are bad at math.

Knowing that I will head into work on Monday with a need to know something more than basic definitions, I pulled out my old stats textbook and started going through it. What a bore. There must be some subliminal memories it stirred up because I immediately wanted to take a nap. Oh how I fondly remember sleeping in various rooms throughout the university's library. My particular favorite room was one with several fireplaces and overstuffed leather chairs, but I digress.

My coworker is also in the process of refreshing his probability and statistics knowledge. He recommended a different book and I have to say that it looks infinitely more interesting. I cannot yet recommend it because I have yet to see the entire book, however it does look promising. My coworker is enjoying it so much, he even has gone through and done the math examples in the first half of the book.

This has me asking the question: Why are college text books so boring? Maybe it is just the classes I had to take, but there are very few text books that I ever enjoyed reading. There is one that does come to mind though and it fits nicely with the theme of my Blog: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. It was suggested reading for one of my Electrical Engineering classes and took me two days to read. Sometimes professors do get it right but I believe that is more rare than common.