This is the second part to the other blog post I made today:
I hope it’s useful to you! I’d really appreciate it if you could give me a share if you think anyone would benefit from this!
Honestly, taking notes like this doesn’t help me really. I would feel like I was wasting valuable time that should be spent on better things, but I also am not someone who studies. (I get high grades, but I’ve never been one who has studied, just a quick review of formulas and example problems if I have a test the next day) Perhaps it’s different for English/Literature/Writing majors though where everything seems to be “analyse this in your own words”. (But I don’t take notes except for when I am in class, and even then I’m mostly copying down what the instructor has in their slide presentations or their examples. I don’t see the purpose of adding additional work for myself)
I used to be like that. I went to one of the top 20 unis in the country and coasted through because I never needed to study.
Then I realised I could have gone to Oxford or Cambridge and had a PhD paid for if I had studied. Like, if I can get As when not studying, I could have probably taken on another exam and gotten full marks in most of my subjects
I feel like I’m still so bad at this, even after so many years of being in school (both undergraduate, and now graduate). I think for me I always forget to “remember the purpose of note taking” and just end up writing, and rewriting every single thing hoping (maybe a little praying) that it just sticks somehow… which is, I know, absolutely awful.
Though, that being said, i do appreciate the tips that were on this blog post. The next time I write notes, I definitely need to make sure that I can 1. Explain the topic myself, and 2. MAKE CONNECTIONS (which, In medical school, is such an important thing to do because if you’re not making connections to previous subjects, you’re not actually learning in the context that you need to be learning in).
Also, on a different note
See, for the most part, I used to be the same way in undergrad. I’ve never really had the need to study - but I’ve realized that Medical School is so different in a learning context. It’s not just about taking information and “memory vomiting” it onto a paper and getting a high grade - it’s about learning, applying, and learning 2nd and 3rd degree answers to questions which I think makes notes more prevalent.
Just my two cents on this!
It also depends massively on the subject you’re studying! I know that for my friends, at least, the ones who didn’t revise much at uni didn’t do so well with subjects that required them to know history as well as their own subject (like literature, politics, economics, sociology, etc)