Do I need to take less notes?

[mwsapphire]

Hi everyone,

So I'm in my first semester of med school. I find myself taking 3-4 hours to get through a 1 hr lecture, often taking like, 7-10 pages of types notes. My buddy told me she can do 1-2 pages of notes and revise them vigrarously, and she seems to be doing much better than me, in terms of time managements and also in terms of scores. A few other classmates told me they bombed the first anatomy exam like I did, because of taking toooo much time to revise the lectures that were not anatomy. I was told that taking 1-2 pages of notes ( these are types, and like 12 pt font single spaced) is much better. And then rewatching the lectures, multiple passes of the notes, and coming up w practice questions.

Will taking more concise notes, without every little detail, help me out more. I've been told since you're not aiming for 90's anymore, this is the way to get 80's and do well in classes.

Any help appreciated,

mwsapphire

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[calivianya]

I personally had Anki open and just made my own flashcards in class. I only made what I could keep up with while my professor was talking, and I didn’t take any additional notes outside of class - I just reviewed the flash cards I made in class and kept up with my reviews every day. That was only when I went to class, though... once I stopped going, I just used the class premade Anki decks (a bunch of people collaborated) to cram a couple days before the tests and never took my own notes again except on the lectures I contributed to for the class decks.

Get a group of people together (the larger the better) and assign lectures to go over so you only have to go through a few lectures each. It’s a waste of time to go through the full lectures yourself - just hit the highlights.

Learn off the board resource of your choice and cram your class material a few days before each test. That ends up being the most efficient method overall since you won’t waste time on irrelevant minutiae, and you’ll thank yourself when you get to your dedicated study period and you’re already prepared to take level 1/step 1.

 

[Goro]

Yup, too much of a time sink .

You'll need to find the optimal learning modality for you. Check in with your school's learning or education center

 

[mwsapphire]

Yup, too much of a time sink .

You'll need to find the optimal learning modality for you. Check in with your school's learning or education center

Yeah I'm trying to set up a meeting with Acadmic Enrichment, it's just tough because everything is via zoom and I have labs all day tmrw.

 

[PapaGuava]

You will get more adjusted with the speed but yes you cannot spend 3-4 hours on one lecture just getting the notes down. Even if you are using the old-school methods, this is too long and will not work.

If you plan to continue using the old-school route (which is perfectly fine), I’d suggest using something like Microsoft OneNote to type up notes for a lecture. It is very clean, close margins, and easy to use. I typically type up notes for every PowerPoint, then when I go through them during my first review, I create handwritten quick-sheets which are essentially an even more revised and high yield version of original notes. It allows you to analyze and study what you felt was most important and it is a good solid pass through the material. From there I mainly study the revised versions and only reference the powerpoints, typed notes, or other sources on some things if I forgot it or didn’t fully understand it.

The old school methods have worked very well for me and some of my peers but you have to learn when not to jot something down or spend too much time on a topic. Also consider checking out Anki, you may find you enjoy that method more than what you are doing right now.

 

[mwsapphire]

You will get more adjusted with the speed but yes you cannot spend 3-4 hours on one lecture just getting the notes down. Even if you are using the old-school methods, this is too long and will not work.

If you plan to continue using the old-school route (which is perfectly fine), I’d suggest using something like Microsoft OneNote to type up notes for a lecture. It is very clean, close margins, and easy to use. I typically type up notes for every PowerPoint, then when I go through them during my first review, I create handwritten quick-sheets which are essentially an even more revised and high yield version of original notes. It allows you to analyze and study what you felt was most important and it is a good solid pass through the material. From there I mainly study the revised versions and only reference the powerpoints, typed notes, or other sources on some things if I forgot it or didn’t fully understand it.

The old school methods have worked very well for me and some of my peers but you have to learn when not to jot something down or spend too much time on a topic. Also consider checking out Anki, you may find you enjoy that method more than what you are doing right now.

What do you mean by "old school"? I use notability, draw with the stylus, annotate images, or type things out. My types out notes def. need to be more concise.

 

[PapaGuava]

What do you mean by "old school"? I use notability, draw with the stylus, annotate images, or type things out. My types out notes def. need to be more concise.

Oh I just meant anything that’s not Anki haha. I guess it’s not actually “old school.”

 

[Laradd]

The more you take notes, you can easily get back to lessons when you study.

 

[Osminog]

What exactly are you typing in your pages-long notes? Are you creating full closed captioning transcripts of your lectures? You’re making your life unnecessarily difficult, in my opinion.

At my medical school, professors exclusively test on information that’s already written out in the slides, and so there’s generally little reason to write down what they’re saying. When watching lectures, I just annotate the professors’ slides in OneNote by marking (underlining, adding an asterisk, etc.) what the instructors emphasized and what they said wasn’t testable. I only write words on a slide if the way something is presented on a slide is incomprehensible or vague. Then I do several active passes through the lightly annotated slides when I’ve finished LY reviews and need to cram for school exams. If there’s a slide with a dense table or list that needs to be memorized and that isn’t covered by LY, I sometimes make a little Anki deck for it.

 

[Tangerine123]

Everybody learns differently.

I had a classmate that recorded all the lectures and then transcribed the recordings (she even included jokes and whatnot that the professor told).

I took notes until halfway of 1st year. Noticed that I never ever went back to read my notes, so they basically just consumed my attention instead of listening to lectures correctly. For some classes my prefered method was to go into detail with low-yield info. Hard read half (400 pages) of Hortons Biochemistry a few days before my final and aced it. Also bought a 300 page book just on Pulmonary Physiology (Levitsky) and read it more than once during that unit. Had an easier time speed reading through content and having a broad idea instead of memorizing stuff.

If you think notes are taking too much time and aren't effective try a different method. Maybe note taking isn't a good method for you. Try reducing the info (less low-yield), switch to flash-cards, hard read books. Try stuff until something clicks.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

I wouldn’t take notes honestly. Do anki, or watch lectures multiple times and make practice questions out of the material, etc. Writing notes is a massive time sink that doesn’t really ever yield good results.

It’s cliche but in med school the mantra of “work smarter not harder” is very accurate.

 

[bioarchaeologist]

I used to take really thorough notes in undergrad but realized it is a huge time sink in med school. I would suggest highlighting the important points (don't highlight everything otherwise there is no point) with minimal annotation, then just make cards based off that. That or just use someone else's cards, if anyone is kind enough to share theirs to your class.

 

[sixersfan]

I feel like this depends on how you study. You're taking a long time to get through the lectures but are retaining most of it? My SO writes down every word the professor says and takes a very long time to get through lectures too. She gets 2 passes in (sometimes 1 pass for less important material) come exam time, and she does great. However, if you are taking that long and retaining very little then it is time to change study methods. It's different for everyone, some people like to go fast and review lectures 4+ times and some people like to go very slow. Just cause your friend takes less notes and does better doesn't mean that will work for you too. Good luck! You got this!

 

[deleted1005514]

What do you mean by "old school"? I use notability, draw with the stylus, annotate images, or type things out. My types out notes def. need to be more concise.

Are you using notability to annotate the slides and then going back and doing typed notes/outlines? If so you are spending a lot of time re-organizing the lecture material and not actually studying it, and it can lull you into a false sense of "I'm doing sooo much work, why don't I have the grades I want?"...I've been there, and I fight the urge to write and re-write notes every week, because I love to handwrite things with colored pens in a spiral notebook. Yes, I'm a nerd. But it's too passive, and it eats up your time without being an effective study technique.

If your professors put everything on the powerpoint slides, you have very little reason to take notes during lecture. To keep yourself engaged, you can add questions to the side of each slide/every few slides if they use several slides to cover a concept, or write down any questions the professors ask the class during lecture. After lecture, as soon as you can, sit down and do a thorough "pass" of the material covered that day...do you understand all the concepts, can you 'walk' through the slides and teach your friend/cat/wall/teddy bear? Seriously, my dog is so sick of hearing about back anatomy she goes straight to sleep when I start talking, lol.

Jot down anything you don't understand for looking up later, & decide if anything needs anki cards, a chart, whatever. This should take about 30 min to 1 hour of review time per lecture hour. After that it's just spaced repetition to memorize the minutiae, that's where anki, charts, sketchy, etc. come in. Those little questions you wrote on the side of the slides during lecture can be used for this too, and then you can add in practice questions, rinse and repeat until time for the exam.

 

[Mad Jack]

I wouldn’t take notes honestly. Do anki, or watch lectures multiple times and make practice questions out of the material, etc. Writing notes is a massive time sink that doesn’t really ever yield good results.

It’s cliche but in med school the mantra of “work smarter not harder” is very accurate.

Some people retain information better when they write notes, as it actively engages multiple areas of the brain (auditory, visual, tactile sensory, and motor) which can imprpve retention. I would take notes and never review them, as the process of taking the notes itself would substantially improve my retention. Anki did nothing for me and was a waste of time, everyone learns differently. OP needs to do an inventory of what has worked for them most effectively in the past in terms of retention and focus on that

 

[Neopolymath]

You could probably use 5 pieces of paper to show the total amounts of notes I wrote for school and even then it was to write something down and then throw it away. Consider if you even need notes. You probably don't. Lots of M1s have that high school "studying" mindset because they are self conscious about not getting their money's worth in med school so they write everything down and never skip classes until 3 months later they do the opposite and laugh about how naive it was.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Some people retain information better when they write notes, as it actively engages multiple areas of the brain (auditory, visual, tactile sensory, and motor) which can imprpve retention. I would take notes and never review them, as the process of taking the notes itself would substantially improve my retention. Anki did nothing for me and was a waste of time, everyone learns differently. OP needs to do an inventory of what has worked for them most effectively in the past in terms of retention and focus on that

Well yes, but the very existence of this thread shows it isn’t working effectively.

Biggest mistake I see any pre-clinical student make is refusing to mix up their study style to try and improve results. If you keep doing the same thing over and over your results won’t change.

 

[mwsapphire]

Well yes, but the very existence of this thread shows it isn’t working effectively.

Biggest mistake I see any pre-clinical student make is refusing to mix up their study style to try and improve results. If you keep doing the same thing over and over your results won’t change.

I am trying to change! That's the whole point of this thread lol
I mean, sometimes my anatomy notes are " ten pages" because I do a lot of drawing and writing, and since I can't write as neatly with the apple pencil, the drawings and writing is just very large, so really it's not actually ten pages it's just big ass drawings with big ass writing so it's clear.
But other than that yeah I almost do just transcribe what the prof is saying because I feel like " everything is important D:" I do need to just focus on main points, tho, and rewatch lectures before exams to remember the itty bitty details.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

I am trying to change! That's the whole point of this thread lol
I mean, sometimes my anatomy notes are " ten pages" because I do a lot of drawing and writing, and since I can't write as neatly with the apple pencil, the drawings and writing is just very large, so really it's not actually ten pages it's just big ass drawings with big ass writing so it's clear.
But other than that yeah I almost do just transcribe what the prof is saying because I feel like " everything is important D:" I do need to just focus on main points, tho, and rewatch lectures before exams to remember the itty bitty details.

How many passes of the material do you get?

 

[TragicalDrFaust]

In UG, I took detailed notes in 80% of my classes and even got hired as a peer note-taker by the Students with Disabilities Services department. While I believe everyone has a different learning style, I've come to realize my obsessive note taking was a symptom of having too much free time (even working 15-30 hours a week and taking class full time- I've had to change up a lot for med school). Like another poster said, I realized I wasn't referring back to my notes because no matter how nice I made them, they didn't answer the questions or provide information I could get from the slides or the textbook. For me, taking notes is mostly a passive learning style because I'm paraphrasing and transcribing. Most students learn best from more active strategies.

Have you tried mind-mapping? Looking back, taking notes forced me to organize concepts under larger umbrella concepts (headings and subheadings), decide what overlaps or what's a new concept. But if you skip the notes and just write the headings, you're giving yourself a more condensed reference material and taking fraction of the time. It's a more active learning strategy that involves critical thinking and organizing the information, as well as a bit of recall as you go along. Most of my note-taking impulses I've converted to mind-mapping. I use them sparingly though. I've probably made 2 or 3 mind maps in all of our musculoskeletal unit and 3-5 in biochem.

If the kinesthetic and visual aspects of note-taking are helpful to you, you might like drawing concepts too. I've been sketching anatomy structures because it helps me understand how things physically fit together and I create customized "views" that highlight important structures. You can also use them to quiz yourself. It's important not to get carried away if you're an artistic type or perfectionist though since we're always working vs. the clock.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

Drop the note-taking. I also tried doing this in M1 because it's what I had always done in UG...it doesn't work, there's way too much material. Highlight things that seem important or scribble a couple of words on a slide, sure. Full out note-taking? You're wasting time.

What I would do is highlight while watching a lecture (on 2x, when I even watched them), then re-read my highlights 2-3x until test day. Combined with Anki, that worked pretty well for me to ensure I was picking up on little things that the professor thought was important.