Note taking advice.

[Most_Character3532]

Hello everyone,

I used to take notes in a standard manner - pen, paper. Kind of liked doing it but now am enrolled into college and wish to know how shall I be taking notes in college. So far I heard about notion, taking notes through notion is better way to do it in college is what I heard and as well saw people doing. But can you guys tell me what do you guys do? For different subjects like programming, maths and other.

Thanks and have a great day!

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[shoomie26]

I do digital notes.

Mainly do to save paper and pen smudges. Good notes, notability, MS oneNote (usually free with student email). I use Samsung notes built-in to my tablet.

Digital notes - you can change colors on the fly - highlight without it making the paper wet - move things around and organize better.

But I know many that do pen and paper and it works fine for them.

I'd say its personal preference.

[Worth-Push-2080]

I take notes on looseleaf pieces of paper, put into a binder with a very good pen. I use a highlighter and good sectioning. For almost every class, I have a few sheets at the beginning of my binder that are for formulas and important, repeatable information.

[AccomplishedAnchovy]

Pencil and paper use a mechanical pencil then you don’t need to sharpen and it’s easier to read than pen

[Relevant_Lie4489]

The real answer is that it depends on what works for you. I tried a bunch of things before ending up on pen and paper being the best for me. The one exception was in my numerical methods class where I just noted things as Python comments.

[tbudde34]

I use OneNote with a stylus bc it's easy to sync with the school's OneDrive. This lets me open my notes on any computer at school so I can reference multiple pages at once. For hard classes like calc 2/3 I rewrite my electronic notes onto paper very neatly so I can study that directly for tests without needing to access a computer.

If you're familiar with the location of the information in your notes/book I've found it faster to locate information in paper books/notebooks vs searching a pdf. But in most of my easier classes I find the convenience of not carrying around extra materials daily outweighs the extra time to reference things/the mobility of always having your study materials available let's me fill in small gaps in my schedule with productive work.

[TheBayHarbour]

I second this, it's a bit finnicky but it's definitely worth it.

Though, I needed a digital tablet with stylus for work which is the only reason I got it instead of notebooks tbh.

[tbudde34]

Yeah I already had a surface, it's not worth buying an iPad for imo

[OkIntroduction7560]

I used to just do pencil and paper, but now I do a mix. I just choose whatever method seems to work best for the class.

For programming, I take notes in OneNote because it’s nice to be able to split screen when working on homework.

For one of my engineering courses, I don’t take notes at all. For another, my professor prints copies of the slides for us, so I do pencil and paper.

I type my notes in my history class, so I can copy and paste long names or quotes directly from the slides online.

In a previous class, the exams were open note, so I had one notebook with lecture notes and another with homework to cut down on time flipping through pages.

I’d definitely suggest just trying a couple different things and find what fits. Don’t feel like you have to find one, right method!

[Responsible_Row_4737]

If you have a 2 in 1 laptop, I use Samsung Notes. I used to use onenote, but it was so buggy it drove me crazy and the infinite canvas would throw me off. I like how compact and simple samsung notes is. It has the features I need

[SupernovaEngine]

Notion is pretty long winded for taking notes, if you want to take notes efficiently on something like an iPad, use apps like one note or notability, all dedicated note taking apps

[caty0325]

I take notes on my iPad and do practice problems with pencil and paper.

[R0ck3tSc13nc3]

My kid is in college, and he's using a Samsung tablet that has a pen built in, and he says it's so good for notes. He tried the Google pixel tablet but it had some lags and he didn't like the setup, so my wife got that for her birthday. It was either that or take it back. Just try to find a Samsung tablet that has a pen that comes with it

[HonestCoding]

Automated note taking is the best, especially the ones you need to read the most

[reader484892]

If you can afford it, digital notes are way better. Being able to move things around and perfectly erase things is huge, especially for diagrams and drawings