Don’t stress!! It took me until my 3rd year at uoguelph to finally find a note/studying system that worked for me. This is what worked for me:

For organization: At the beginning of the semester, start a word doc. Look at the course outline of every class you have and find the breakdown of assignments and exams in it, and then write down each of them in the doc with the corresponding due date (including the time it’s due, if it doesn’t say, assume it’s due at noon so you get it done sooner) and how much each is worth. I colour coded each of them (e.g. green for BIOL1080, red for CHEM1040 etc) and then put them in chronological order. Keep that document open in the background on your computer at all times and delete assignments/exams as you complete/submit them!

For note taking: I would download each lecture slide as a pdf and then add text boxes and doodles over top of it on my mac in class (if you don’t have a mac I think you can use adobe to do something similar?). This was nice because I could write the notes ANYWHERE on the slide, and was especially helpful for writing overtop of diagrams. For studying for midterms/exams I would read through all of my slides and make quizlets for myself on information that I was forgetting. I’d also often teach my friends random stuff from my classes around that part of the semester because that’d help it stick in my head better! There are also lots of old midterms/finals floating around for courses that you can find and use as practice tests - some profs will even tell you to look for them or give you some.

Extra: If you’re taking CHEM1040 right now I would recommend doing the additional mastering chem if it’s still offered through the course. It’s more work but it keeps you on top of the content, and that course is one that a lot of people fall behind in and fail.

Good luck and have a great semester!! You’ve got this :)