A Lecture on University Lectures by Dr Rob Leftunders

Attending lectures requires a note taking strategy. During lectures there will be lots of information and data to take in. Writing good lecture notes is a skill which will help organise and coordinate your learning.

You may already have developed your own note taking system and style from your A-Levels but if you don’t know how to take and housekeep your student notes it will make lectures difficult and more painful for you.

Lectures will often be the introduction to a topic and define key things you need to learn. In my first year I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to keep up or that I wasn’t good enough to take all the information in compared to fellow students on my course. If you feel this way too than meet up and speak with your lecturer for a chat. They will be able to offer some guidance  to ease your worries and put your mind at rest.

Attending  university lectures and sorting out your timetable of student life takes some disciple. You need to be prepared for every lecture to get the most out of them. I know some of them will want to send you to sleep, certain topics of your degree are more exciting than others.

Preparing for lectures and going back to it can be stressful after the holiday fun finishes and you’ve scrambled to write your essays and complete your reading lists. This is the time to sort out your bag file away last year’s work, buy any new stationary and organise your timetables.

Your reading lists can explain and help your understand the subject matter before attending lectures however don’t go rushing off ahead of yourself. After a few hours reading you can evaluate a topic and form your own opinion.

The best preparation for a lecture and note taking is a good night’s sleep so you are alert and ready to pay attention to what your professors have to say.

Studying Note Taking Skills –

I prefer taking hand written notes to using electric tablets, apps or recording devices. Writing down important facts and figures reinforces education. Good note taking techniques help people remember things, which comes in useful for exams and taking minutes in meetings.

The hardest thing about note taking is you can be unsure what to actually make notes of and record down. Your lecture notes don’t have to record and document everything. You aren’t a court reporter. If you try and capture everything and transcribe exactly what is said you’re not going to learn anything and when you review your lectures notes they will be a nightmare to understand.

Listening to a lecture is one thing, actually listening and taking it in is another. You’ll need to make sure your student notes make sense and you can comprehend what you’ve written down after a lecture. Too much note-taking can actually distract you from listening to the lecture content.

Focus on the important stuff to note down. What information and material is of most use to pass your exams, write your essays and useful for your project work?

Only make notes when they is something new to learn. Pay attention to key facts, dates, names, keywords, definitions, diagrams/pictures, list any pros and cons and the lecturers evidence or summary and further resources that will help. These are the most important. Also do you agree with what is been said? Do you see it from another point of view? Does it raise more questions or issues? What debates and discussion does it generate?

These questions can help with your research and understanding later. Note down your own thoughts and ideas on the topic.

I suggest you note down anything the lecturer puts on the board and any material and reading list you need to follow up with. If you are struggling to note things down or miss anything the important things will usually be on the board or printed out for reference.

Leave plenty of space for adding extra notes and further information. Often a lecturer will return back to an area so leave some room to fit a bit more in or jot down your own points of interest.

Note-Taking Techniques:

• Avoid transcribing everything down only record the definitions and important facts/figures.
• Listen and pay attention and summarise the key points of the lecture.
• Always make notes on things the lecture has written down on the board and further study and reading/research material.
• Use visual learning like drawing diagrams, circles or use arrows to link-up topic concepts and relationships in the material.
• Space out your notes for extra information to add on and keep your material in a logically sequence.
• Record material that may rise it’s head in any assignments, exams and projects.
• Engage in the lecture and ask questions to clarify things.

The main thing with noting making is you develop a method of taking notes that works for you so the lecture material sinks in and your notation is easy to follow. Use bullet points, colour, highlight or underline keywords and definitions, draw flowcharts, mind maps, Spider grams – anything that reinforces the meaning, connects and links ideas and put your study notes in order.

Without structure in your lecture notes you find it difficult to be productive and make use of your time.

After the Lecture –

What have you just learned? A good habit is to go over your note taking afterwards to help you retain the lesson. After each lecture go over your notes and review them to make sure they make sense and pick up on anything you don’t fully understand for extra read-up. If you don’t you are more likely to forget what each lecture is trying to teach you.

After a lecture is the time to test what you have just learned and get feedback from others. Talk with friends, compare notes and hold study groups with other students to help you feed ideas and concepts off each other. Study groups can help reinforce what you learned from a lecture. Studying with someone else or in a group can help motive you and offers a chance to go over and review your lecture notes so some of the keywords and theories actually stick. Hopefully your brain will retain some of the key material ready for revision.

An important part of building your own study guide is getting organised and planning in advance. Top students make the most of their notes and will save revision time by conducting note reviews soon after a lecture.

Studying in short bursts is better than trying to cram all your learning and revision in over a few days. After a few hours you tend to lose focus so break up your study guide. Creating your own study guide and learning routine will help you absorb your course material a lot easier.

Having a filing system for your lecture notes is vital for revising and reviewing study material. If your student note taking isn’t brilliant then reading up and taking notes from on reading material is ideal. Do the reading in advance and get the books out of the library early. Leave it too later and it can be harder and more expensive to track down a book.

Lots of learning is done outside of the lecture rooms. You can only really learn by doing and observing the world. If you are taking a technical, language or practical subject you won’t find the answers or learning experience inside text books or research. To get good at sometime you have to practise and apply what you learn beyond the learning environment and library.

Taking good notes is nice, the real test is applying the wisdom afterwards. Doing these things will make your note-taking and lecture time more beneficial.

University life starts by your need to find student accommodation. somewhere to live during your time there. Your room is your home so make yourself comfortable and feel at home. Utilise the space you have if you use a shared kitchen claim a cupboard and part of fridge.

You may want to find a student flat to rent or rent a house with a group of friends with a student tenancy. Finding flatmates will help you share and reduce budget costs.

I recommend you start looking early, your university will be able to help and provide a list of student housing. Look at a selection of properties before making a decision. We found a range of properties in price and size so don’t grab the first one you see.

When looking for student accommodation four to six bedrooms should be fine depending on how many want to move in together. When you find a place make sure everyone in the group views the house to make sure everyone is happy and will like living there. It needs to be a joint decision.

I recommend you go for fully-furnished with a washing machine or laundrette close by. Also it helps if the house is close to the uni so you can roll-out of bed and get there on time. It’s also useful if your student accommodation is close to town or local shops (so you grab some food and can top-up on booze at the off-licence).

The biggest feature you need to look for with your student accommodation is a large living room and communal living space, a fair size kitchen is also an advantage.

Read and check the letting contract before signing it. Make sure you understand the bond, monthly heating/water bills, the rent to pay and any how the deposit works.

When you move in have a house warming party. A student house means parties, alcohol, noise and wild sex. However, be nice and considerate to your new neighbours. I recommend calling around and introducing yourselves and invite your new neighbours to your gatherings. If you are planning a party let them know beforehand. So your neighbours will already not be too pleased. Should your parties go overboard your neighbours will complain to the council.

As a student group you’ll need to agree on sharing the joint responsibilities of running a household. Sharing the rent is easy however water, heating, lighting, TV license and other bills and expenses will be due.

Shopping and cleaning are other issues. You may notice your food supplies and nibbles disappearing and no one will admit responsibility for taking them. I suggest you keep your precious Jaffa Cakes and snacks hidden somewhere safe beside your allocated cupboard. A good tip is to buy a small beer fridge, which can also store a back up milk supply.

Your student house doesn’t come with a cleaner. Rubbish piles up and bins will be overflowing if you don’t empty them. You will need to stock up on cleaning products and may need to invest in a vacuum cleaner. After numerous parties and slob like attitudes your student accommodation will look like a landfill site.

There will usually be a disgusting member of your student group, the one that doesn’t pull they weight on cleaning duties and has a tendency to let mould and fungus grow on cups and watch food turn nasty. They’ll never recycle empty cans or bottles, they’ll leave pizza and kebab boxes around, they’ll never buy cleaning materials, wipe up spillages, attempt to clean out the fridge or use bleach down the puke ridden toilet.

It’s important to keep on top of the mess, filth and dust that accumulates and that you all “muck” in as a family unit to keep it clean and tidy. It’s not easy dealing with the messy lazy bones types. I suggest you mention and drop hints it’s unlikely that a member of the opposite sex will want to stay over with them if they’ll have a smelly room with dirty laundry on the floor and live like unclean beast.

It’s useful to have a student friendly landlord and one that will respond to faults and fix them quickly like a broken boiler in midwinter or a leaking water pipe.

Make sure you get some content insurance to protect your laptop, TV, game consoles and porn stash. You may be covered on your parents home insurance but double check first. You probably won’t not have much content to insure so consider gadget only policies and take out accidental cover. When you go out make sure you lock doors and windows and keep valuables out of sight.

Don’t let these warning put you off. Living with friends in a student house is awesome fun, even if you have the odd argument about the cleaning rota. Enjoy your new home and freedom.

Students seem to get bad press and treated with contempt by parts of society. We are stereotyped as unemployed, drinking, shagging, layabouts living on cigarettes, soup and beans on toast. In reality student life isn’t all parties, wild sex and drugs. I think many people have the misconception and confuse students with seventies rock bands or the images on TV.

It makes for more entertaining TV to portray “us students” as good for nothing party animals then watching students reading and researching in the library. Filming students working would be dull viewing. It’s better to have students dancing topless on tables.

In fact moving away from home, mingling with strangers in a strange city is all a bit frightening. You might need a beer to settle your nerves. However if getting drunk and mastering how to drift from bar to bar is your three year university plan then your balance of booze and work is one sided.

This is the image and label many people have of students and our university lifestyle. We’re all studying to be professional  procrastinators to avoid real work.

The other day I was dressed in my suit and tie going to a job interview. I met a middle aged lady at the bus stop and she started up conversion about the weather and bus timetables. The small talk was going well until she asked what I did for a living seen as I was all smartly dressed up. My response was “I’m a student at the uni”.

Well  that response seemed to cut the conversion short. The air felt a bit awkward as I could sense she was displeased with my answer. I’m not sure what she was expecting me to say but she didn’t seem happy that I was a student and not some hot shot businessman who unfortunately had to catch the bus because my Mercedes was in for a service.

I felt labelled and judged. One minute a high-flyer, the next a deadbeat who drinks ten pints a night, eats beans on toast five times a week and who just happens to be in a nice suit. While I have struggled budgeting with food and yes some meals have been beans on toast it doesn’t make me Jack the Ripper.

I wish I could party all night long and have sex in the nightclub toilet yet the reality of student life is very different to that seen in film and television.

I admit even my expectations of the student lifestyle were higher. I thought it would be a bit more like the experience you see on TV but after your rent, bills, food, transport costs, text books there’s not much money left to buy crack cocaine.

Of course I enjoy a beer. I’m not denying that. I enjoy the odd all night session of booze. Students need to work hard and play hard so we need a blowout once in a while.

On the other side of the fence I also enjoy a slower night out with the new girlfriend. When we go out I may even dress smart, share some fine wine and a meal that’s not beans on toast. When money’s tight we both enjoy a quiet night in together watching TV and listening to music. It’s almost perfect, if only she’d dance topless on the coffee table.