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Comment by jkabrg | Hacker News Reader

I never wrote down any notes at university. My process was:

  - Review material on Moodle before lecture.
  - Go to lecture. Don't write anything.
  - Review material again on Moodle after lecture.

I don't know how you don't lose your notes, or have material missing from your notes because you were sick one day.

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I wish I had a source, but I recall reading multiple studies that indicate your approach is preferable to writing tons of notes during the lecture. some keywords or doodles might work, but apparently furious note-taking is counter-productive.

Guess it depends heavily on classes. For the math oriented classes, I found taking notes from what the lecturer wrote on blackboard/overhead to be invaluable.

I very often did not have to look at the notes afterwards, but I _had_ to write them in order to remember. If I didn't write it down, I only recalled a fraction of it.

Of course, pacing is important, so that I could think about what was said and written, without having to overcommit to either. This is why PowerPoint doesn't work for me, as I have to chose to spend my mental capacity turning the PowerPoint into lecture notes, or listen. I can't seem to do both at the same time.

That's a good point. I find that my approach to programming lectures, for example, is quite different from my college days (psychology). And even then there was a difference between the 'typical' lectures and the ones on statistics and methodology.

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