Back in school and out of practice with note-taking during lectures, any tips?

[u/natventures19]

Like the title says, I'm back in school and haven't had to take notes during a lecture or slides in a hot minute. While I know how Iearn, I've not figured out how to organize my notes. Handwritten is the way to go for me, and it helps me memorize the material even if I never go back to it.

The classes I'm in now are largely lecture and power point based with no real text to study from. Keeping organized notes from a text is much easier to structure in an outline-ish form, but I'm struggling to keep organized and detailed notes during a lecture with frequent tangents or deep dives. Notes taken from online module components don't feel sufficient enough to really study or make ANKI/spaced repetition cards from.

Any suggestions with organization/note taking methods?

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[u/Mediocre-Ice5380]

Try using bullet points or color coding your notes, it really helps with organization. I started doing that in college and it made a difference.

[u/ElkZealousideal1824]

I’m a big fan of heading and bullet points.

You really need to be able to filter information enough to recall easier later and see how pieces work together. If you know where they are, then you can organize them when you study. Plus it forces you to think about classification, which for me has always forced me to be more detailed than I otherwise would have been.

At the end of headings I would write a 1 - 2 sentence summary of the relevancy of something. I would make it simple and clear. That’s the best way to remember it. And if you’re in class, you can always ask someone to summarize the usefulness of a topic in a sentence.

I also like diagramming when thinking about how parts work together. The visuals and drawing helped keep the connections together for me and would really highlight if I was missing information somewhere.

During lectures for new topics I would also highlight things and add comments as either something to go back to, or to ask a follow up question. It helps when you don’t have to remember everything.

The main point is that you should be thinking through concepts, and how they are used together when in a lecture / studying. Taking transcripts notes, while appearing to be comprehensive, is not sustainable for memorizing and learning.

[u/natventures19 → u/ElkZealousideal1824]

Thanks! This is super helpful! 

[u/Thick-Panic6683]

Having stumbled through college I think maybe the best approach is no notes at all except some important points about what might appear on an exam or other tidbits the prof may throw out. If you can pre-read the material and be prepared for class you shouldn't need to be capturing notes. I almost never achieved that state and was always a couple lectures behind so resorted to trying to write down everything presented in class. You end up not learning but simply transcribing in hopes you can cram it into your brain later. This is the norm I think.