Recording Lecture Notes With Laptop

[neonam11]

Hey, I was wondering how many incoming and current pharmacy students plan to or are taking lecture notes with their laptops.

I'm planning to buy an IBM Thinkpad T40 for this sole purpose, but before I shell out 3.5K for this baby, I want to know how feasible it is. Granted, some subjects like Advanced Organic Chemistry might not be too conducive for taking notes with a laptop, but the idea of having neat, archivable notes (I can convert my documents to PDF format) sounds like a great idea, especially when 4 years later I want to retrieve them to get ready for the state board examination.

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[Brill]

A little off topic: I can't comment about taking notes in pharmacy school with a laptop, but if that is the sole purpose for you purchasing one, why spend $3.5k on it? If you're just going to be using it for taking notes you could easily get a nice one for $1k or less.

During the application process when I was looking at prospective pharmacy schools, I noticed that some of them actually require a laptop (Texas Tech comes to mind).

 

[dgroulx]

UF records all their lectures and keeps them online. You can review them anytime. They require that you purchase a laptop. I bought a Toshiba and I'm really happy with it. They've had really bad luck with Think Pads at my husband's work. Why do you want that particular laptop?

 

[neonam11]

Well, the main reason why I want the IBM T40 is for school but would like to use it for other purpose as well, like digital video editing.

From the surveys I read, this laptop is a solid computer in terms of performance, battery life, and customer satisfaction. It might be an overkill, but I want a laptop that won't become outdated after a year or two. One of my friend attended law school and bought a Compaq blah, blah (forgot the specs for his laptop) and he said he hardly ever used it during lectures because none of the lecture halls have enough power outlets to accomodate all the students. Needless to say, his battery died after 40 minutes of use. With the T40, I can get at least 4-6 hours of juice before it needs another recharge. Also, I guess I prefer to pay a little extra for something that is of high quality than having to buy two or three mediocre products.

BTW, UCSF only requires you to have a computer. Whether you want a laptop or desktop is up to the student.

 

[LVPharm]

Brill's right...I spent $$$ for a Dell Inspiron 8200. Too much money, too much computer, and too heavy. In retrospect, why did I need to shell out that much dinero for a computer I only use to print out class notes, do power point presentations, check email and surf the internet? It's not like I'm doing photoshop or gaming with it. Save the money, and get a nice, light notebook. Your back, shoulders, and pocketbook will thank you later

As for taking notes, quite a few of us tried to do so in the beginning since the lecture notes were available in microsoft word documents before lecture. Students would type into those documents (with a different colored font) any additional class notes. But everyone eventually got lazy, and just printed out the lecture notes and wrote in any additional class notes.

 

[neonam11]

LVPharm, the cool thing about the T40, since it has a Centrino chip, is that it's much lighter than its predecessors, weighing only 4.5 pounds.

I definitely agree that if you are only going to do word processing and surf the internet, it might be a big mistake to make such a huge investment especially if it gets stolen. However, I do do work with other softwares that require a little more ooomph--Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere.

As for the lecture notes being provided in an electronic format, I don't know whether the professors at UCSF will provide us with this luxury. I don't know, while as an undergrad, I often typed up my notes after class and thought this was a faster way of doing it since now I have the funds to afford a laptop.

 

[LVPharm]

4.5 pounds is pretty good...my dell weighs just about as much as a gallon of milk. I suppose that since you'll be running more demanding graphics design software, you're perfectly justified in spending the dough for the added performance

 

[BMBiology]

Originally posted by neonam11
Well, the main reason why I want the IBM T40 is for school but would like to use it for other purpose as well, like digital video editing.

Are you sure it is not for porns as well? I am just messing.

 

[neonam11]

Nah, I think the gals at UCSF are too respectable to be starring in some home-made porn. Besides, I don't have a collection of funky to accompany those kinds of movies.

 

[dgroulx]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a desktop for video editiing? You'd get better performance and save money. The laptop video cards don't have the same power as the desktop ones.

You could take notes on a PDA or pocket PC and download them to your desktop.

 

[neonam11]

Dana, responding to your comment about typing notes on a PDA, it sounds like a good idea! My lawyer friend mentioned that some of his classmates did the same thing.

As for the powerful desktop, I had my IT friend build me an awesome computer last year. I just wanted something just as powerful whether I'm at the library or at my parents' place.

 

[Triangulation]

I knew a bunch of people that took notes using there PDA's with the fold out keyboard and they were hella annoying to sit next to. To much clicking of keys. I'm sure I'll get used to it though.

 

[jdpharmd?]

I use a pen. Am I forever damned to eternal hell? What's wrong with writing in the margins of your course-pack, book, and notebook? Am I not with "the 2000's" yet?

 

[neonam11]

I type way faster than I can print, so in my case, the keyboard is mightier than the pen. For me, the more organized my notes, the better, faster I learn the materials and retrieve them.

 

[jdpharmd?]

How are your typing skills for diagrams, the krebs cycle, chem rxns, functional group and moelcule structure, etc? There wasn't a single person in my pharmacy biochem class who used anything other than a pen (ahem, or pencil, smart guys), although I know that at the opposite end of things there are schools that REQURE a laptop. I was just curious. I own all that crap, and the only things I use any of it for are drug databases and email, and I consider myself pretty proficient with a computer.

 

[neonam11]

JD, good point and that is why I pointed out in one of my earlier posts that taking notes with a laptop might not be feasible for some classes that have diagrams and structures-O'Chem, biochemistry, anatomy, etc.

But again, I thought about that as well and plan to install Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, ChemDraw (if I wish to get it) on my T40 (if I'm crazy enough to buy this baby as well), so when the professor whifs out some drawings, I'll be ready and draw my own pics, then importing them into MS Word or Adobe Pagemaker, whichever software I choose to do my wordprocessing with. However, since my drawing skills will not be as fast as a person relying on freehand, I'll just draw it in my notebook and reference it so later on I can scan it and import it into my notes.

Boy, I hope I can stay faithful to typing my notes as I planned, or else I'll eat my words.

 

[jdpharmd?]

Chemdraw and chem-office are REALLY cool, I used them for my organic chem independant study, and the professor was really impressed. Chemdraw 3d is neat, but kind of useless. And then there's always the problem of drawing VERY large molecules with chemdraw, but it's amazing what that software can do.

 

[neonam11]

On that note, I found an academic retailer which sells softwares at discounted price. You can get the student version of ChemDraw for $89.95, the retail price going for $595, so, yeah, you're getting a bargain depending on whether you'll use it throughout pharmacy school and beyond.

Another software I'd recommend every professional student to buy is Adobe Acrobat 6.0, which goes for $100.00, the academic version. Don't worry, the academic version is the same as what you'll get if you buy a full version at some retail store. The great thing is that software makers (and some computer makers, like Dell and Apple) give discounts to students, teachers, etc. Anyway, with Adobe Acrobat, you can create electronic documents at the click of the button. I use it to fill out applications from already available PDF files, make forms, and create electronic records. If you ever wondered how people make those nifty PDF files, this software will give you the power.

Here is a link to an academic software reseller if any of you guys are interested:

http://www.academicsuperstore.com/index.html?