How do you stay organised?

certifiedcrepe

This would be a great help to me as I'm trying to figure out how I'll stay organised next year if I get into UL. Do you use folders or ring binders? Laptops or take notes by hand? Does organisation change from course to course? Like with the Arts course, would more folders be needed for more subjects? Or whatever floats your boat really, would love to hear it all

Btw, looking to do Midwifery if anyone doing that has any tips

AlwaysRight

Depends whether you like the old school pen and paper method or would be more into using a laptop or some other device.

Most people seem stick with the old note pad/refill pad and pen. Then putting those notes into folders afterwards - if they are good.

There are others who will use electronic devices for note taking though. I have seen some people voice recording lectures, but I reckon after 4yrs of college you will have no memory left and no idea where to start looking for the info you want. Other people use Microsoft OneNote - mainly because it comes in the student suite of Microsoft Office. I used it for a semester and it was pretty good. You'd also see a few people using plain Microsoft word or similar.

It doesn't really matter how you take down or gather then information but how you keep and sort it so you know where to look when you are studying for exams.

I use a balance. All lecture notes distributed electronically (through SULIS or Sharepoint or Moodle) I will save on Dropbox along with any documents/assignments I type.

Any pages I write will go into a Lever-Arch folder. One Lever-Arch folder with dividers would be enough to hold 1 yrs worth of notes/scrawls for 5 to 6 modules for me. Depends how you note-take really.

Biggest piece of advice is to use Dropbox instead of memory stick for EVERYTHING! Then nothing gets lost. If you are using a memory stick, it will inevitably get broken or lost at the most vital time. Just google dropbox and sign yourself up!

Best of Luck!

J_E

I have one of those big refill pads with dividers. That's pretty much as organised as I need to be.

Jester252

A pen and paper is your best bet. Also make sure you have a loud alarm on cold winter morning its easy to sleep through them

scruffystack

Can't beat the trusty old A4 pad for all of a semesters notes! Keeps them all in the one place.....

highlydebased

+1 for Dropbox...much better than the old fashioned method of emailing stuff to yourself...!!

Agent_99

Each Lecture will supply their own notes in a different way some will use sulis others will supply a book through the print room.
What I do is 5 ring binders one for each module, print of the notes before each lecture and write the lecture notes on them or separate A4 page depending on the lecture. I leave the binders at home and clip the notes into them in order this builds up the whole course over the semester and makes it very handy when study week comes around as all my relevant notes are in one place and I can just bring in one folder per subject into the library to cover everything, I started this last semester and it was my best semester for grades yet, I found I was covering everything without trying to figure out what notes I was missing.

€20 in Tesco value range for all my stationary was the best money I spent.

Best of luck to all the freshers !!!!

hattoncracker

Hardback notebook for each module, notes are all in one place and can't be lost, and all.in order.


Really handy, esp for science maths.

TEMPLAR KNIGHT

I get one of those A4 note books that is divided up into 5 sections and take notes by hand in class then tear them out date them and put them into a folder for that specific module and have another folder for the tutorial for that module. I Also keep all the stuff I have to download organised in folders on my computer. The more organised you are during the semester makes studying at the end of the semester way easier!

J_E

There is also such thing as being too organised...honestly, I think it saves yourself the bother having everything in the one refill pad, divided into sections, and use one pad per semester.

Agent_99

Cydoniac wrote: »

There is also such thing as being too organised...honestly, I think it saves yourself the bother having everything in the one refill pad, divided into sections, and use one pad per semester.

If only it where that easy, the amount of notes that I have to take for 6 modules plus 3 lab books a refill pad wouldn't last me a fortnight also all the recommended reading text books I have are all the size of telephone directories.

aelune

HUGE refill pad and separate cardboard "sleeve" folders for each subject. Take quick, one word notes in each lecture....date the lecture notes and give the week number (week 1, 2 etc.) and just put them all into the designated folders according to the subject/module. By the time the semester ends and it's study week - all you need to do is fish out the folders, staple all the weeks together in any way you want and work from them. You'll no doubt have powerpoint slides and other digital notes to deal with but it always helps to have your own idea from a lecture too. Don't over organise though - or else you'll drive yourself insane....BELIEVE ME.

wnolan1992

I go for an A4 pad and one Lever Arch folder per semester (can expand to a dedicated folder if the module has a lot of notes/is really central to the degree).

In each lecture, the first thing I do before the lecturer has even arrived is write the date, time, module, and whether it's a Lecture/Lab/Tutorial. I do this even if I know the chances of having to take notes are minimal.

Each Friday evening I go through the A4 pad and put the sheets into the folder.


Since I'm doing a Computer Science-y course, most of our notes are electronic, so I try to keep my HD as organised as possible, in the following hierarchy:

Desktop\College Files\Year\Semester\Module\Lecture Notes

Same for labs, tutorials and assignments.

Also put a lot in dropbox so I have notes when in CSIS.


One piece of advice I'd give to any incoming first year is to DOWNLOAD NOTES BEFORE STUDY WEEK. Every year without fail there's a thread started here with people complaining that SULIS has gone down and now they can't get their notes. Download anything the lecturer puts up online as soon as possible so that you won't be reliant on the college networks.

Togepi

Good thread! Does anyone here have any organisation/note-taking advice specific to languages? The only useful thing I can remember from taking notes for the Leaving Cert is to use one pen colour for whatever English you write and a different one for the stuff in whatever language you're studying... In general I'll probably go for the A4 pad and folders approach.

certifiedcrepe

Thanks everyone for all the tips! I got science choice I'm sorry if this a stupid question but do you have to study throughout the year or is it mange able to leave it til study week? I work better with continuous study but I'd love I hear what people are doing.

TEMPLAR KNIGHT

certifiedcrepe wrote: »

Thanks everyone for all the tips! I got science choice I'm sorry if this a stupid question but do you have to study throughout the year or is it mange able to leave it til study week? I work better with continuous study but I'd love I hear what people are doing.

I've done both, studying throughout the year and just study week. obviously I get way better grades when studying during the semester takes a lot of pressure off in the last few weeks when everyone else is freaking out and of course better chance of having no repeats which will wreck your summer! It isn't that hard to study during the semester to be honest I just get lazy!

dorkacle

I find most lecturers don't appreciate you sitting behind a laptop, even if you are genuinely taking notes. And being honest a laptop usually just ends up being a distraction anyway, particularly if you have wifi in the lecture hall. Its bad enough with people dossing on smart phones tbh!

Personally I do prefer the pen and paper and my organisation has evolved as I go really. Depends on what suits your course/lecturer's style. Though I do usually have a A4 pad for each subject all in a folder with dividers and a couple of poly pockets to house any handouts you may get. Works for me

wnolan1992

certifiedcrepe wrote: »

Thanks everyone for all the tips! I got science choice I'm sorry if this a stupid question but do you have to study throughout the year or is it mange able to leave it til study week? I work better with continuous study but I'd love I hear what people are doing.

It's really dependent on both your own preferences and the module tbh.

I study better when I'm under pressure. Always have. So the bulk of my study for exams is done in the last two to three weeks before the exam.

That said, there will be modules that you aren't great at, so studying during the semester will help immensely, and will help you be more relaxed going in to exam week.

Concentrate on the modules you're having difficulty with more during the semester, and cram the ones you find easier during study week and exam weeks.

I did the opposite last year, concentrating on the modules I liked and which were more relevant to what I want to do after Uni, and here I am staring down the barrel of two repeat exams that I have little/no hope of passing.

So let that be a warning to ye young whippersnappers! :pac:

hattoncracker

certifiedcrepe wrote: »

Thanks everyone for all the tips! I got science choice I'm sorry if this a stupid question but do you have to study throughout the year or is it mange able to leave it til study week? I work better with continuous study but I'd love I hear what people are doing.

For science choice you will be doing science maths, go to all your lectures in this module, and make yourself known to the maths learning centre early on. Trust me. It's a b*tch of a module and yiu really need to keep on top of it.

Jester252

In theory you should study through out the year.
but as you will learn in your labs theory just dosen't work well when put into praticse

Mollymawk

Ok, here goes. Most people will think this is way over the top, but take what you will from it.

Refill pad and pencil, rubber, topper (my preferred choice)
A document wallet with 6-8 dividers
Stapler
Highlighters (2 or 3 colours)
A couple of big packets of polypockets and a pack of cable-ties.

Be sure to put subject and date at the top of each page of notes, and also of handouts.

Write and write and write during lectures.

Lecturers will emphasise specific things that are important. I always highlight those things instantly in yellow. If it's mentioned as a possible exam question, green highlighter. Lecturers tend to (rightly) give plenty of background info to explain something, and you need that, but the highlighting lets you zoom straight in on the exam stuff, dates for CA exams etc.

At the end of the day, or after the lecture, rip out all your notes from the refill pad, staple together if you've more than one page, and put in the document folder, into a divider for that subject. Now you can leave them there as long as you like, and they can be handy to carry around for a couple of weeks, but the folder gets bulky and heavy quite quickly.
This is where I stick a whole pile of polypockets together with a couple of cable-ties, and put all the notes from each subject in chronological order in this little "book", which I normally leave at home. When you need to take your notes to the library, these plastic books are light, handy, easy to read, coffee-proof, and can easily be expanded by snipping the cable-ties and using new ones. I've rolled them up into my handbag, and studied in waiting rooms. At the end of the semester I print off all the past-papers, and put them into the book. Together with the green highlights in the notes, it's a brilliant study-aid in the run-up to exams.

I'm going into 2nd year Environmental Science (not in UL, btw), and came out of 1st year top of the class in 2nd semester, so I did something right! As a mature student with family and community commitments I had to be super-organised with my college work. I kind of accidentally stumbled on the system that really worked for me. The rest of the class nearly all came to me if they wanted info from a lecture or if they had missed a lecture, and I could nearly always help them out.

Whether my system works for you or not, get something set up from week 1, because hours and hours of time can be spent trying to make sense of messy notes, and if you don't have notes for a subject, you're pretty-much screwed!

The very best of luck with your studies, the fact that you're even asking about note-taking before you start suggests you're in the right frame of mind to get the most out of your course and do really well. And enjoy!

Mollymawk

With regard to studying or cramming, a bit of both works for me. I'm too busy to study in any great depth through the year, it's hard enough to stay on top of assignments. I try to glance through my notes from every lecture at the end of the day (I don't always manage it). You can just skim them pretty quickly, and it really helps reinforce the info while it's fresh in your mind. Anything you really haven't grasped ( chemistry springs to mind!), there are great tutorials and animations to be found on youtube, and the Khan Academy website is brilliant for science stuff. They're all only about 10 mins long, and are presented simply. You can reward yourself with a dose of facebook or boards or whatever floats your boat when you've watched a video!

Apart from that, a couple of weeks of cramming with the system I described in my last post was loads.