I am taking some classes at college (middle-aged me) & I can't believe how many books are required for just one class! Most of the students carry these HUGE backpacks & many of them use the cases on wheels. It's crazy - most of my teachers never even use all of the books we're required to purchase - or use them very little.
I rarely carried all the required books to class. Just took good notes and notated what areas to focus on. Most of the books I didn’t even buy.
At least weird, if not crazy.
Back in "the day", we rarely toted books to classes. Most classes were strictly for lectures & exams; and books were either for preparing for the next lecture, or for reference, unless told otherwise.
Notebooks, and a couple of Bluebooks just in case, and a slide rule (unless you could afford $300 for a 5-function "calculator" with no memory) were about all any of us lugged around.