Five Ways I Take Notes in College

Starting my fourth year of college (I graduated with two associates degrees in May 2015) I've wrote notes in almost every way possible.

The way I write notes really depends on the class (duh). 

In my Social Psychology class, I wrote in 4 different ways until I figured out what was best. 

Types of Lecture I've had:

1. Goes along with Powerpoint

2. Just rambles 

3. Writes random stuff all over the white boards

4. Makes you write your own book notes then goes over stuff later in class. 

Hand Writing:

1. I bought a Cornell note book (here) when on sale these are the best deal. Original price is around $8. I use the same pen when I write in this notebook, because it writes fine and is really smooth (here is the type of pen).

I have a key when I write notes: 

Definitions have bullet points in the cue column

and arrows in the note section.

They are also highlighted yellowed if on a test, then blue if on final.

Powerful words have a circle around them 

~ Are the studies done

< Title of Powerpoint Page > 

I only do this for the Cornell System. However I plan on doing this, this coming Fall for notes also. 

 * I don't always use the summary part 

2. I also take notes by hand on normal college rule.. these notes are following a powerpoint so for this...

1. I < title the powerpoint slide> if the same slide goes on for three more slides, I don't rewrite it I just keep going under that titles. 

2. I number each slide and skip a line between each slide. 

3. I use different colored pens for definition, studies, and then just the rest of the writing. 

Having so much paper left over I've decided to do this type of note taking for my Fall 2015 semester. I will only change, one thing, I plan on incorporating the Key I use for the Cornell system.

3. Note taking from the BOOK....

I write my own notes going along with the book, leaving space in-between. Then when I get in class I write in whatever the Professor talks about. 

                    

Using Technology 

1.  I have an iPad that I use to follow along with Powerpoint during class. I only take my Macbook Air when I have projects. I hardly ever type my notes, you learn better if you have to physically write them.

I took these notes because I missed a day, lucky another student in the class had the notes and emailed them to me and I just added on to his.

* I recommend becoming friends or hope that a person who types notes will share them with you if you miss a day. 

I used my iPad when I took online classes, I haven't used my iPad for note in along time. But I might pick it up again this semester. 

Extra Way:

I once had a Professor who gave us the Powerpoint online. We had so many Powerpoint's (I filled a 3 inch ring binder FULL with all of them) I just decided to print them out in outline format and wrote my notes in. I ONLY used this for this one class. 

Then during my education class the Chapters were so short, my Professor printed out the Powerpoint's and gave them to use to write in whatever we wanted. 

Over all the type of note style I do depends. I usually go through each type of note taking, during the first week till I figure out which one will work best. Although, the Fall 2015 semester I plan on sticking with hand written while using my Key. I find I learn best using this method. 

Hope you enjoyed. Leave your own advice in the comments. 

My Review on the GoodNotes App

My amazing boyfriend finance got me a iPad Air 32GB Wi-Fi for my birthday. You can get it here.

I was sooo excited because I knew I could use it for school and it would be a lot easier then hauling around my skinny Macbook Air. 

However now on to the review I bought the GoodNotes app for around $3.99. I looked at a lot of other ones and this is just the one I decided would be best for me. 

So what can you do with the GoodNotes app 

1. The main thing (which i'm sure you can already guess) I write all my notes for my online class on this app. 

This is what the front of the Chapter looks like. The design in one you can pick from. 

This is what you can do instead of swiping through each page. You get an over view of them all. 

This is the "home" where all your notebooks are located

There are parts that are really important and I don't feel the need to write it down. So I simply open a text box and type away. 

This is what it looks like if you use a stylus pen. You can also upload google pictures and add them in.
These notes are from Child Psychology. 

I took a picture of the notes I had taken on paper and just uploaded them in to there own notebook in the app. 

My favorite part about this app is you can change the type of paper you want. You can have lined, graph, music, plan type of paper. I use it for math I'll draw my graphs, print them out and turn the graphs in with my homework. 

You can also had shapes, you just draw one and it forms into a straight one. 

We also have vocabulary for my math class, however; it's not required for the assignments but we still have to learn it for the test. So what I do it take pictures of the questions and just write the answer in using my stylus pen. Again why write a bunch of stuff when you can take a picture.

This is what it looks like when you are writing (the easier way).

The blue box shows up at the bottom. This is where you write at. 

This is helpful because it doesn't pick up your hand when you write (at least how I write). 

A blue box will also pop up once you write to the middle and what you do is just start writing in the blue box and it will take you to the beginning, end, or a new line of the page. It basically prevents you from having to move the blue box around to keep writing. 

Something else I do is I will take pictures of the homework I'm about to turn in. I do this because I turned in 3 math assignments and needed them to study with for the test that was two days later. So I obviously wasn't going to get those assignments back, but his worked just as well.

I will also keep pictures of work outs I want to do and I keep track of my plan of study. I recently changed my major and needed somewhere to keep track of all my classes.

   

It's a great app! I use it everyday for homework, exercising, and to watch some Netflix.

This is where technology has its advantages.