How I Take Notes as an Engineering Student
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- Опубліковано 4 лип 2024
- In this video I share the note taking strategy I used while at university that helped me to go from knowing essentially nothing on a particular subject at the beginning of a course, to mastering it come the final exam. This strategy was not only a great study technique that helped me to transform my grades but it also was an excellent method to absorb so much more information than I thought I could. I encourage you to give this strategy a go and see the results for yourself. Happy studying!
00:00 Intro
01:04 Capture
03:06 Find The Gaps
03:55 Fill In The Gaps
05:20 Consolidate
WHO AM I:
I'm Ben, a graduate structural engineer working in Australia. I make videos about engineering and tech. In these videos I hope to provide entertainment, advice and knowledge for aspiring and young engineers.
I started University for Mech E at 29. First semester i used traditional notebooks. Second semester I purchased an iPad. You can make monthly payments on it if that helps as it is quite expensive. With ZERO interest. At first the digital platform was tricky for my visual/structured brain. After a while though I would NEVER go back to traditional notebooks. You can store EVERY note you take from day 1 in university like he said in the video. You can have every textbook for each course in good notes as well. I can refer back to any notes with a search feature or a click of a button. The best part of the digital notes is how convenient it is to have everything in one place, and how easy it is to reorganize with copy/paste. You will spend 10 minutes making a cheat sheet, while your peers take one plus hours to re write everything. Some re writing is good but at a point you reach diminishing returns and its just wasted time. In the future i believe digital notes will be the universal standard.
Thanks for sharing this! Digital notes have so many advantages both in the short and long term. I couldn’t imagine doing uni without them :)
Thank you for the tips, I´ll apply them this new semester
Hi Huri, no worries at all! I wish you the best of luck this semester :)
just finished my first semester for aero and my first exam. reflecting on the semester, I don't think I was studying smart and I think I burnt out. whilst I was writing stuff down like you did, except without the lecture slides, I failed to "find the gaps" and subconsciously I thought "if I'm making these great notes, surely I will understand it," but I don't think that was the case. after watching this, I think it would've been better to take the time to read through the lecture notes as the lecturer is talking, and write down any important information with question marks if I didn't understand it. it not only seems to save so much time as opposed to writing every little paragraph that the teacher says, but its also super convenient to mark any objections you have. next semester I think I'll start importing slides into OneNote, and really focus on understanding the material as opposed to making pretty notes.
It’s awesome to hear that you have taken the time to reflect on your past semester and have got a game plan for the next one. It’s so important to optimise your study and I can tell you are on the right track. Great job! Best of luck next semester :)
Do you think there would be any downsides to doing the first step (capture) on iPad since it’s easy to annotate note slides and you doing have to print them off. And then do the last step (consolidate) into a physical notebook. I prefer the feel of physical pen and paper, but I also like the easy of use of a tablet, so I feel like this would be a good balance. Just wondering your thoughts. Thanks!
Just got my first Surface. Preparing my note taking strategy for the year from your videos
Awesome! I definitely have a few videos that should help you with this. Also, I’m posting a video in approximately 10 hours that explains all the benefits you get from taking digital notes and I think it could be inspiring for you. Stay tuned! :)
Starting a new semester today and there's no better prep than rewatching your videos!
One question;
From this video I understood you download the lecture slides before the lecture starts. I was wondering, do you read the textbook or any material before the lecture? Or do you just use the textbook when there's a concept you want to further understand? I.e., how do you make use of the course textbook?
I find the course textbook to helpful when revising. In most instances I found it easier to be exposed to the concepts in class first before going through the textbook on my own
Thank you so much
My pleasure!
Thanks!
My pleasure! Thanks for your feedback :)
Hi there! Thanks for the information. By the way, I found out that there are two OneNote in my PC. The OneNote and OneNote for windows 10. Which one do you use?
Hey! Good pickup :) I actually use both. When I’m handwriting notes I like to use OneNote for Windows 10 but when I want to export my notes as a pdf or view them on an older computer I use OneNote (notes sync across both apps).
Thank you
My pleasure!
Finally, a fellow engineering student talking about how study, istg medical students have a monopoly over this niche
I have one question tho, after you capture everything from your lectures and tutorials, you said they look messy right, so I was wondering do you go back and rewrite them neatly in a new note so it is clearer when you revise?
That’s step 4, u gather all ur resources and make a note that doesn’t require any additional material to understand.
Hey Ben, how did you make the note title "special" at 6:47? I'm trying to implement your same system myself on OneNote. From your other video on the structure of your onenote notebooks you had the pages in chronological order like W1L1 etc. What would the title of the special solution be and would you still categorise it chronologically? Cheers
Hey Daniel, the first time I would do the tutorial questions in class with the teacher my notes would be all over the place because I was rushing and trying to get everything down. The title of this note would be W1T1 etc. After uni that day I would come home and basically re-write the solution and add formulas/graphs/tables etc. next to my solution. This new version of solutions for that same week 1 tutorial would then be called W1T1 GCOPY. GCopy is me abbreviating “good copy”. This gcopy version is then what I would refer to when revising these questions :)
@@BEngHielscher Perfect thank you once again. It's unbelievable how you don't have more subs, although I feel like your big breakthrough is coming soon :))
Is One note able to recognize the handwriting so you can search it as a keyword when you happen to forget where your note is?
Hey Carlo, Yes OneNote does recognise handwritten notes when using the search function! You can also filter the results by notebook, section or page :)
@@BEngHielscher That's great, I will be getting the surface 8 next month. Very excited. Thank you.
That’s awesome! I’m excited for you too. My surface pro changed my life at university. I hope yours helps you a lot too :)
It's so difficult taking digital notes I'm using hp envy computer and it moved around a lot 😩
Oh no that’s annoying! Perhaps if you put a rubber case or some other material that has a bit more friction it won’t move around when you write :)
@@BEngHielscher Oh Really! I'll try that! Thank you!
Lmaooo, i actually came here to see how i can Organize my notes on deflection of beams what a coincidence
Could you please consider sharing some of your notes?
Hey I might be sharing some resources soon, stay on the lookout :)