Note taking in uni

Hi there!

I'm really excited for october here! I've been doing some shopping and I was wondering whether it was necessary to buy notebooks for note taking in lectures. I heard that some use the computer but I'm not quite sure if that applies to the majority of the students. Personally I don't mind both, so I'd just like to know which method is more popular!

Thanks :smile:

Reply 1

GlaGirl :)

I bought notebooks, personally because i think people would get sick of me typing really fast into my laptop haha.
i also bought coloured pens so i can rewrite them when i've got free time :smile:

University of Warwick

Coventry

Reply 2

Chris-robinson

Would depend on the subject really. If you are going to be drawing complicated diagrams or graphs then paper is easier to use.

Reply 3

screenager2004

Paper is usually more used. In the lecture hall, there's 200 students. 5 of them have a laptop, and 4 of those 5 are on facebook.

Reply 4

muffingg

mlleflorence

Just to give you another option: Think about a touchscreen laptop. Just think about it and do some research regarding quality, prices,... Maybe it is more suitable to u.

Reply 5

mlleflorence

screenager2004

Paper is usually more used. In the lecture hall, there's 200 students. 5 of them have a laptop, and 4 of those 5 are on facebook.

Advice taken. So people don't bring their laptops around with them?

Reply 6

katebushfan

I imagine paper would be better than a laptop. Simply because to be sitting in a lecture hall with the tap tap tapping of keys would get a bit annoying :P.

Reply 7

TheTallOne

People do bring laptops around with them, but only a handful of people use laptops in lectures.
1) It's less reliable than pen and paper if the OneNote or whatever you are using crashes/hard drive fails/gets stolen.
2) Everyone else finds you annoying as you are the only one in the room tapping away in the corner of your vision.

However, gauge the first few lectures - if there are a noticable amount of laptop users then by all means use a laptop. Or a tablet like an iPad/Dell Streak.

Reply 8

screenager2004

mlleflorence

Advice taken. So people don't bring their laptops around with them?

Some people do bring laptops, and it is quite normal to bring a laptop and no one will think it's weird or judge you. It might also depend on the subject you take, in my lectures (sociology) only two or three people had a laptop out of 100 of us, in my friends lecture (engineering, I had an hour free and sneaked in) where they're all technophiles, there was perhaps 5 or 6 laptops in a hall of 250.

But ask yourself whether you really need it, and whether it's really improving your study skills, or whether you're just swept up in the novelty of having a laptop in lectures. :smile:

Generally, Students only use their laptops for group work and revision in the library. If you usually use a laptop in your lectures, and that;s how you work, then it's fine :smile:

Some examples of stupid reasons to bring a laptop to lectures:

Most often, people were just on facebook, (or solitaire?!) or they'd have a blank word document up, but would check their facebook every 10 minutes and it was clearly just distracting them and they weren't getting any work done.

One girl had the sound recorder on, and was recording the lecture. Good start....
But completely defeated the point of it by furiously copytyping everything from the slides onto a black word document: what is the point? She was so busy trying to keep up with copying everything off the slides that she couldn't possibly be taking in what the professor was saying.

One girl had downloaded a copy of the lecture slides, and had it open in front of her, on her laptop. But she didn't take any notes, she just read the slides on her laptop screen alongside the lecture. Why? Why not just read the projector screen?

The most effective method, I found, that got me a first in all my modules last year (except for that darned languages module!) is:

Before the lecture, find the lecture powerpoint on the uni website. Print it off so you have a copy of the lecture slides in front of you on paper. When you attend the lecture, devote you attention to the professors comments and explanations, and annotate with your own observations and critical analysis. (You can do this digitally, but it wouldn't be of any real benefit and you'd have to lug a big laptop about in your bag all day)

Reply 9

bishbash72

I always used my laptop. My handwriting is crap and it was twice as fast using keys, which means I ended up taking twice as many notes as my friend who wrote all his out by hand. Plus I could amend my notes later on and organise them easily within folders. I don't see why more people don't do the same.

P.S. And I didn't even play solitaire on it (macs don't have it). However I did once spend a particularly bad lecture playing pokemon, damn pidgeys!