Disclaimer: I have never taken a non-science college class. Meaning, I have no idea how to take notes for humanities or social sciences. Not saying this method won’t work for that, just that I can’t guarantee it will. Also, this method is not about achieving pretty notes, only structured practical notes.
Notebook. I use a notebook. Most people I know use a notebook. Why should YOU use a notebook?
You won’t get as many handouts (if any) as in highschool.
Professors won’t ask to see hw in your notebook. For all they care, your notes could be a comic about the class. As long as you pass, you do you.
You don’t have as many classes in a day so even if you carry around notebooks, your bag won’t be all that heavy.
You can divide it into three sections: class notes, seminar notes/work and lab work. All in one for your studying comfort.
Professors WILL reference that formula from 3 classes ago and when you have no idea wtf they’re talking about, you can just flip a few pages.
Seriously, no one in your class wants to hear you snap loose leaf paper out of your ring binder.
And let’s be honest, your notes are going to get jumbled up any other way.
If you’re taking a continuation class and you’ll need to revise from these notes, it’s much easier to pull out a notebook than to look through the thousands of notes from all your classes and try to figure out which are the ones you need and what is the correct order.
Two pens, three tops. Blue for general notes, black for sections and the other color for subsections or underlining. Go for black for general note taking if you want to (I do it too sometimes) but blue strains your eyes less.
Structuring notes: not every structure works for every subject and professor so you should figure out a method for each one. That said, I usually start out with a basic structure and then tweak it along the way to better suit my needs:
The name of the unit should be your ‘big title’. ‘ORGANELLES’
Every ‘big topic’ (very easy to identify – usually the professor will make it really clear that you’re moving on to a different topic or it’ll be on the slides) inside the unit is assigned a number. ‘3. Mitochondria’
Every ’big aspect’ of that topic is a subtopic. ‘3.4. Structure’.
If there are even more sub subtopics, continue with the numeration system. Otherwise proceed to use bullet points for any enumerations. If there are enumerations inside these enumerations (wow enumerception), change your symbol for each level. Instead of bullet points you can use dashes, squares, spirals, Xs…
The exception for this is when the enumeration corresponds to steps in a process. In that case, I number each step and circle the number.
For each level you descend, indent your text. It’ll be easier to not get lost. Skip this if you’re working with a small notebook and you’re afraid of running out of pages.
Sticky notes are your best friend. Does some random piece of info the professor just decided was important enough to be mentioned not fit into your very methodic structure? No problem, add a sticky note. Cute + calls attention to it, so you won’t forget.
The easiest way to visually break up a block of text is to indent your paragraphs. Get used to doing while taking notes in class and it’ll eventually come naturally to you.
If there are slides, I sometimes print them and annotate them in class but most times I just use the slide titles as reference and take notes in my own words. My point is, don’t just look at slides and go ‘yeah, most of the info is there, why bother’ because you’re not engaging with the material and that’s as good as not going to class tbh.
Don’t waste your time: if a word has come up 10 times in a class or is just really common in whatever subject you’re studying, shorten it. There’s no need to write ‘replication’ a thousand times when ‘rep’ will do the job. Keep in mind I’m not talking about shorthand here (if that works for you, great, but it’s very difficult to revise from shorthand notes without rewriting them).
If something confuses you to no end, use a page flag and mark that page so that you can go over it at home. If it’s something that you need to know in order to follow the rest of the lecture, RAISE YOUR HAND AND ASK, professors don’t bite, they actually love being asked questions because it means that 1) Someone’s actually paying attention to their boring-ass lecture 2) They get to talk about a topic they probably really like more in-depth. Plus, most people in the lecture are probably as lost as you are and will be internally thankful that you asked.
Don’t recopy or rewrite your notes. Maybe you got away with it in highschool, in college? You will be miserable and fail. There’s just not enough time. Here’s what I do instead: as soon as you get home, take out your colors (highlighters, pens, whatever) and
Underline/highlight sections and subsections. Make sure to use the same color for the same sublevel. Adding ribbons around your big topics/subtopics is a fast way to get them to stand out.
Underline key words or sentences (my favorite method is underlining as few words as possible but in a way the sentence will still make sense. It keeps your mind engaged).
You can even colour code your info if you’re feeling fancy.
Not only does this give you a reason to read through your notes after every lecture but when your exam comes, looking at color coded stuff is much simpler than looking at a block of blue text that goes on for 30 pages (trust me, I’ve been there, it’s not pretty).
When you’re done color-coding each section, try to recall the main points from it. See if you missed something. Repeat. There’s your daily studying done.
Ask upper-classmen for their notes. Most of them will happily give them to you and it will save your butt. Use them as reference when it’s 8 AM and you have no idea what Mr Prof is going on about or when you skip class (you’re going to do it, just don’t make a habit of it). Alternatively, use them as your ‘base’ notes and add any little things that are not there in the margins or with sticky notes. I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re as particular with structuring as me but it does make things easier sometimes. Some of them may try to charge you for them. It’s still worth it (unless it’s some ridiculous price).
If you feel like it, make bullet points/write the main formulas for each page on a sticky note. I don’t always do this but it helps a lot when studying.
This is not actually practical because listening to recorded lectures and taking notes takes so much freaking time but if you have a professor whose lectures are just all over the place and seem to have no structure whatsoever record their lectures and listen in class (if you feel like you’re able to take rough notes DO THAT) and restructure them at home. Alternatively, bring your laptop to class and take rough notes, then copy-paste-and-reorganize (I usually reorganize them by hand but it’s much smarter to do it digitally)-
Stop worrying about how your notes look. You’re just going to trash them/hand them over to an under classman who won’t actually care if they’re pretty or not, after the year’s done.
This is just my note-taking method and might not work for you and if it doesn’t, don’t be afraid to experiment! There are so many note taking methods and most of them work - I have a friend who just gets different textbooks from the library and studies from them (HOW???) and another one who refuses to use any additional materials and has all her notes by hand. Whatever works for you, works for you and remember this: your notes are only messy if YOU can’t understand them.
Thank you @studywithkal for suggesting this post!
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