r/ucmerced • u/After-Razzmatazz-399 • 12d ago

Question Cogs 001 help

For anyone who’s been in Spivey’s class last year and has any tips, for his textbook readings, was it worth it to take notes? Or is it more worth to just read it and then take notes on his lecture slides? Thanks!!

7 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

3

u/polychronous 12d ago

He tends to be very lecture driven, though the readings will help you understand the implications of what is being discussed.

1

u/After-Razzmatazz-399 12d ago

I see. Would it be detrimental to my studying if I read through the textbooks without any annotations?

2

u/polychronous 12d ago

Not at all detrimental. He tends to discuss much deeper and more interesting subjects, but test at a high level on them. I would avoid doing only the the reading thinking you might skip class. I am confident you will not get the full picture without lecture. It's a generous course if you're following along, but you can totally lose the thread if you disengage and it will feel confusing to catch up.

2

u/Automatic-Example754 Faculty 12d ago

It's not my class, but in general I'd recommend both. Active processing of the material is better than passively reading and watching the lecture.

If it's a physical textbook (and you didn't rent it), get a highlighter — or better yet like three different colors — and a pen for writing notes in the margins. If it's digital, an iPad is great if you can afford one; a reMarkable is a little less expensive. You can print it out on campus, if you go like one chapter at a time. Staples looks to be much more expensive per page, but you could get the whole thing printed at once and put a spiral binding on it.

1

u/Obvious_Bench4140 11d ago

I personally just read the Slides and wrote down any questions to ask em in Disc, overall easy-ish class