It's been a while since I've last written about university, and since then I started the second year of my degree, and academic responsibility hit me with the speed and force of a rocket. The timetable suddenly became overcrowded, demands far more superior than what was asked of me last year, deadlines scattered further away throughout the semester, more frightening than ever before. Workshop experiments, weekly readings, online activities, assignment preparation and, of course, note taking. Given how many things I have to do for university on a daily basis, it sounds almost ridiculous that taking notes in time and efficiently for lectures has become one of my problems.
Now, I consider myself to be quite an organised person. I'd dare say I'm well-known among my friends for how organised I like to be, and how obsessed I can become with keeping everything in place and fitting everything perfectly in my daily schedule. I do have my mishaps every now and then, indeed (months on end not updating my bullet journal, surviving weeks without to-do lists, etc. - topics to be discussed in a future post), but even then I always find organisational alternatives to keep me going in the long run. I might not keep a complete record of my activity today, but clues about it lay around my bedroom, in my online calendar, on lost post-it notes or scribbled underneath my lecture notes. In a nutshell, I love organisation because this is how things make sense to me. So naturally, organised and consistent note-taking is one of my top priorities as a student.
I have to admit this one now, before it's too late, though: I don't think I'm good at note-taking. If anything, I'm merely still exploring methods and techniques for taking notes, trying out in order to discover what works best for me. Today I want to share my experience with note-taking in university, and let you know on how some of these methods worked for me. But if you look for a guide to taking good notes, there are plenty of resources out there (especially online) that you can go through to find what suits your organisational style and the subjects you take. I am just a novice in this field, really.
Most of my writing and note-taking supplies are placed on my desk, at a hand's reach - I never end up interrupting revision to look for stationery.
As for the places where I learned how to take notes, I highly recommend the Study Skills series from Crash Course on YouTube (click here). This is an educational project aiming to teach viewers useful academic skills, ranging from something as simple as concentrating on lessons and developing better memory for learning, to tackling assignment requirements and dealing with exam anxiety. Their first episode is, in fact, about note-taking and it expands on the three most common methods for that (that I will touch upon here, as well). I also found inspiration for note-taking on Pinterest and Instagram, and if on Pinterest you can find a multitude of articles about organised studying and tips for that, Instagram is worth using only if you look for aesthetic inspiration for your notes. Because pretty notes make you feel oddly satisfied even when the rest of your student life looks like it's falling apart.
The idea for this post came to me when one of my peers from uni asked me how I prefer taking notes for class. A simple question, that later led to a fiery debate on methods, techniques, organisation and the times it's actually not worth taking notes. It really made me wonder: how am I really taking notes? Then, I started asking myself: when and where do I actually take notes? Do I take notes at all? It soon became quite philosophical. At first, the only thing I was fairly confident about was that taking notes is very important to me. In fact, it's the backbone of my performance as a student - and it's always been. As early as primary school, I would keep notebooks of notes for each individual subject, all of them neat and organised and colour-coded. It really wasn't related to me wanting to be the teacher's pet or depending on this way of life to survive in school - I just simply liked doing it. As I said, writing it all down and putting it all together like a puzzle made sense to my brain. After years of practice, I didn't even consider doing it any other way: taking notes just became natural to me. I later learned that I am a visual learner; in other words, I am more likely to study efficiently if I experience visual stimuli related to the information I try to acquire. So, writing down my material and using colours, symbols and signifiers to tell bits of it apart happened to be the ideal way of learning new things for me. Hence why, if you don't feel like you need notes to study well, that is fair enough. Trust me, I am sometimes jealous of that.
My student binder, paper supplies and pile of uni work for the next day are placed on the side of my desk.
I keep a notes record for each lecture, workshop and seminar that I am attending every week, and my notes have labels for the module that the notes are for, the date when they were taken and the number of the session that happened that week. This helps me keep a clear record of what I did this semester, and what was the order of the topics we went through for each module. Each module is also colour-coded - I usually take my notes in either blue or black pen, and use fineliners in black and the code colour, plus a highlighter in the code colour to highlight and underline important words, concepts, definitions, dates and other pieces of information. I usually carry with me only the fineliners/highlighters for the classes I have that day and for the lessons that I am planning to revise at the library if that is the case, so my pen case is fairly light and doesn't take much space in my bag. I take my notes on either white blank paper or lined refill pad paper, staple them together and then add them to my student binder (I keep one of these per semester, where I store, in order, all my notes and study materials from the modules I take that semester). My student binder is kept at home, and I go out and about carrying only the supplies/notes that I need. I developed this system throughout my first year of university, and I don't think I'm planning on changing it anytime soon, for several reasons: it's cheap (buying paper is more affordable than buying notebooks everytime you finish one, and you don't run out of it as fast as you do with notebooks), it's convenient (it takes less space in your bag, it's easy to pull out of the bag and take notes during lectures without taking much space around), it's easy to organise (you can change the order of notes and modules in the binder, you can add optional material and reading you might find along the way, if you don't like a set of notes you wrote, you can just take them out and start again). The system also requires me to check the binder the night before a new day of classes, in order to either know what kind of notes I will be preparing tomorrow or what lecture I would want to go over again at the library, and before I know it, I have a revision plan set up. Only difference from last year's system is that I no longer use my student binder just for keeping notes, but I also add all the exercises and worksheets I go through in my workshops and seminars, as well. Last year, I kept a little notebook for seminars and workshops but this time around, no more. So far, I don't regret it - it's so much easier to know you have everything in one place.
My methods for taking notes depend on where and when I am taking them. I think the most striking differences in my note-taking style show when I take notes during lectures comparing to writing my notes at home. Here I would like to add, I have literally tried everything when it comes to taking notes during a lecture, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that is trickier than it sounds. I have gone through a phase of putting down every single thing written on the lecture slides (to the point where I would use my tablet or my phone to go back in the presentation and write slides down while the class was carried further ahead, and I'd never manage to catch up), and I also tried taking notes on my laptop while following the presentation on the screen at the same time. I like taking pretty and neat notes, carefully highlight anything of importance and frankly, it is clear as daylight that you don't have time for any of these during lectures. You have one hour and a half on your hands to tune in, listen up, assimilate as much information as possible, knowing that you'll have to use it in a practical context later in the week, or for your next assignment in a month. No time to waste, you need to take notes fast! It gradually occurred to me that I couldn't do the only thing that kept me above water academically speaking - I couldn't take notes during class. I couldn't just sit and listen either (been there, done that, didn't go that well), and I realised that my only choice was to adapt my note-taking to the rhythm of lectures.
If you are a visual learner like me and you struggle to take notes during lectures, try mind-mapping. A mind map is a scheme of inter-connected terms and ideas, all stemming from a central concept that you try to understand using all these little bits of information and puzzle pieces. A mind map is pretty much what it sounds like - a map in your mind, showing the route from this one thing you are trying to understand, to all these other things that are part of it and make it what it is. I've never used mind maps that much until now, but once I started taking notes in the form of mind maps during lectures, my issues with attending class and understanding what was going on were completely solved. Not only do I get a visual representation of the topic on paper in time, helping me understand things quickly and efficiently (I just scribble the mind maps on paper, no need to care about aesthetics there), but I also use it later at home, where I take my time with writing neat and beautiful notes starting off from the mind map I drew on paper that day. Making a mind map is easy-peasy: all I do is put the title of the lecture (make it, "Problem Solving". Or "Drugs in Prison". You name it.) in a cloud, then start sticking out arrows pointing at different ideas and concepts introduced and described during the lecture. I give myself the chance to both check the slides and listen to the lecturer explain at the same time. Then at home, I turn the page over and start taking the notes the way I wanted to take them all along.
When taking notes during lectures started to prove challenging, I gradually shifted to using mind maps, in order to write down important pieces of information fast and well.
For following the lecture efficiently, I also recommend printing off the slides prior to the class if you have the chance and the means. Choosing page view for 3 slides per page in the Print wizard will give you some lined space for taking notes next to each slide of the presentation - and thus you get your own copy of the study material as it was introduced by the lecturer, and your own evaluations and considerations written on the side. I do this more for workshops and seminars, though, since it allows me to follow the structure of the session and have instructions for the activities available for me at all times.
My ideal note-taking is very much based on aesthetics. Since I am very sensitive to visual stimuli, I feel more prone to pay attention to something pretty, symmetrically organised, generally appeal to the sight. Notes taken in one single pen colour won't seem worth my interest like notes highlighted and underlined in different colours would do. Using a complex key of symbols and bullet points makes me associate and compare ideas way easier and faster than I would normally if I had to work with a compact block of text. I just like visual challenges. And when I first came across photos of and articles revolving around the art of taking neat and aesthetically beautiful notes, I thought of it as a challenge as well. I was stunned by the dizzy diversity of styles and themes for note taking that were out there, and it was only a matter of time until I gathered plenty of inspiration in my Instagram and WeHeartIt collections, and Pinterest boards. Swiping through these pictures made me happy, but a bit jealous too: deep inside I felt like I simply wouldn't be able to achieve such a standard of beauty and organisation, and for a bit, this took a serious toll on my motivation to take notes, and therefore study in the first place. Definitely not cool.
As I further explored the magical field of taking pretty notes, I also managed to gradually come to terms with the fact that my notes might not be 'pretty enough'. Frankly, I'm not an artist. My hand-eye coordination is terrible. Even my handwriting is wonky and, sometimes, a true eyesore. Most of the time, I just don't have the patience to go to the extent that I aspire to. And all of these things are okay. I found that staying focused on my priorities (studying and performing well academically speaking) is a clear, healthy way of reminding myself why I became interested in taking notes in the first place, therefore making sure that I don't get distracted along the way. Trying to make my notes look nice is only the cherry on top of the cake; picking the cherry away wouldn't change the actual taste of the cake.
I usually take my notes again at home, and that's when I like to experiment with different styles and techniques.
Last but not least, I adapted my note taking to my academic objectives. Instead of blindly following iconic methods for note taking, or copying colour schemes and formats off the internet, I filtered everything that I learned about taking notes through the perspective of what I am actually trying to achieve within my higher education. How many classes do I have a week? What do assignment preparation and workshop homework consist of? How do I keep track of my weekly reading? These questions and many others dictate the way I take and organise my notes, which is meant to facilitate the aims and learning outcomes for each module that I'm taking. I do feel like I won't make sense until I give an example. As a student of Psychology and Criminology, I have a minimum of reading of theoretical material and scientific articles that I need to reach weekly (it's safe to say that even up to this point, the number makes me feel very insecure). For me, reading research papers is polar opposite to reading a novel or one of my beloved self-help books. For me, academic reading simply can't happen without notes - not just a summary of what I read, but also bits written on the edge of the page, between the lines (literally) and lots of highlighting, underlining and circling of words throughout the text. So when it comes to reading, I adapted my usual style of taking notes to help me carefully track the informational discourse and safely keep everything that is worth knowing. Not everybody out there has to do similar kinds of reading, but I do so I need notes specifically for that.
Another example would be putting down definitions for new words. Chances are, if you're reading an academic paper you will find quite a few intriguing words you never came across before - and that's perfectly alright! It's a piece of scientific research for a reason, and the odds of you using such terms in real-life situations are ridiculously low. Since English is not my first language, I am more likely to not know the technical terms I'm coming across, and after the initial embarrassment I felt about it, I decided to take action. Now my reading and lectures are permanently accompanied by word lists written on colourful paper (you guessed correctly - colour-coded according to the module), that I staple to the pages of notes that they are supposed to clarify: when I go back to my notes to study, the new words I still don't feel like I have complete control over are there to help me out if I get stuck. Now, some people might find not knowing words very silly and writing down definitions and examples for them a waste of time, but I feel like I need it, hence why I'm bothering with it in the first place.
This actually brings me to my final point: learning how to take notes is an inherently personal experience. Just like with pretty much everything else in life, you can hardly judge something unless you experienced it in the first place. Just because people have had a certain kind of experience with said thing, that doesn't mean that yours will be similar. You don't know what's out there until you explore the unknown yourself, and same goes for notes: you can't develop your style until you try things out. For becoming the brilliant note taker you've always wanted to be (huh), all you have to do is grab a pen, some paper and see how different styles and methods work for you. Don't feel discouraged if things don't go as planned - put the paper away and start again freshly, and refer back to your first version of the notes if needed. Don't put yourself down either - the familiarity of your notes would be entirely lost if you copied somebody else's style and approach, and do you really want that? What would be the point of your effort then? Don't be afraid to embrace inspiration - it'd be a shame if you didn't make the most out of what is out there in terms of note taking of any kind. Finally, have fun! Celebrate the unique twist you want to put to studying.
That's pretty much all I have to say about taking notes, although I'm fairly certain I'm far from finished. Feedback and suggestions are more than welcome, let them be for taking better notes or for improving the quality of posts on my blog. Until I hear from you, happy studying!
Photo sources: personal archive.
Photo edit: VSCO.