Organization: The First Step to Better Learning

For most college students, the prospect of taking detailed notes in class can be daunting. We don’t blame them. During most lectures, professors tend to cover multiple texts and sources, making it difficult to figure out which bits of the lecture are more important than others. It’s very common for students to simply copy everything on the whiteboard without really focusing on the lecture and trying to develop the intuition behind what is being discussed.

Luckily, more and more professors are permitting the use of technology during class. We’ll discuss some ways through which students can take high-quality notes while at the same time develop an understanding of what’s being taught. Let’s start with Organization.

The Calendar

Using the calendar app should be the first step for most students. It can often become too cumbersome to open the syllabus every time you need to look at which topics were covered in class on a specific day. Towards the end of each lecture, just go to the calendar on your laptop or phone and note down the topics covered in class. Doing so would be immensely helpful when you’re preparing for an exam. In fact, using the calendar in this way will even allow you to better organize all the notes you take.

The Cloud

Be it Google Drive, iCloud or OneDrive, the cloud is the way to go when it comes to storing your notes. All three services are available on your phone, laptop and can even be accessed using a public computer. Files stored on the cloud can even be shared directly from the app, students no longer have to rely on E-mail or USD sharing. Students may create separate folders for each class that they’re taking. All material created during class will go into that class’s respective folder – making organization speedy and efficient. Towards the end of the semester, you’ll be able to sort all the material in each folder by date. This alongside the calendar will allow you to know exactly what was covered on any specific day or week.

Part 2 of this blog will be posted soon. Stay tuned.