As a kid, I never used to take ,,notes”. Like why do I need to write down stuff when being taught in class? Isn’t me paying attention enough anyway?

Looking back, it was a miracle that I actually used to get good marks through school. My books never had notes and my teachers used to force us to write down questions and answers so that we actually have something to learn from during exams. To the point that I didn’t even write down the homework that I was supposed to do, thinking that I will remember the page number or the homework anyway.Honestly, a lot of it was just trying to finish it the next day in class before the teacher checked it. That is also the origin story for my super bad handwriting.

Fast forward to my college in India, of course we didn’t have our professors holding our hands so that we would pass our exams. That was also the first time when I used the same notebooks from the first semester to my last… The only reason why it even got filled was because of this one random semester where I decided to be super organized and write everything down. Also the semester where I got relatively lower marks. Note-taking went out of the window really fast.

Now a story from the current times. And by that I mean my first class in THD. The only exception to my exceptionally bad note-taking is Math class where you obviously need to solve the problems. So, in my first math class, I was writing down everything like the ideal student I am. The way my professor used to set up the class was, he gave us the entire list of questions he would solve this semester with the space for answers. So we could print out the sheet and write the answers down. And what do I see? Another student just casually taking out his tablet, taking a picture of what the professor solved on the board and attaching that to the pdf file. And I was like “You can’t do that, right!? This feels like cheating!”. It was such a smart way to not put in the effort.

For me, the whole process of note-taking has changed during these pandemic times. I haven’t touched the notebooks in a year now, preferring to use the note taking system in my laptop. It is far easier to just type out words when the professor is talking online than having to write down everything in a notebook. It is also easier to find them afterwards as all of my notes are in the same app and I don’t have to keep searching for them.

I wish I could talk about the amount of highlighting people use for their notes. I really never used highlighters because at the end I will just end up marking everything as important.

Till next time,

Ajay

Ajay is an Angewandte Informatik Masters Student (he recently learned the pronunciation) from India. He has been an ESN member ever since and keeps saying he is an Arsenal fan like it is a badge of honour. He loves to eat even though it doesn't seem like he does. He is a traveller who likes to experience new adventures.