In high school, the only notes I, and everyone else around me, ever took were handwritten. Fast forward a few years and entering college, everyone was taking notes on laptops, myself included.
My first year, I typed all of my notes, excluding math classes, and then would later hand write them out in to my notebook. Yes, a pretty ridiculous thing to do and same may even say it is a time waster, but I believe I learn better and subsequently study better when I have hand written notes. Why didn’t I just hand write to begin with? Good question. I think I thought I might not have enough time to copy everything down, or maybe it was the influence of everyone else’s computer screens around me.
Anyway, that’s what I did and had no issue with it. Now, in my second year, there has been a huge shift back to hand written notes. In fact, in all of my classes this quarter hand written notes are either required or highly recommended, basically meaning that they are required.
Each professor started off the first day of class with a similar sentiment:
“You know, there are studies that show why hand written notes are better than typed, and you actually retain more information if you hand write. That’s just some food for thought.” *Cue every student with a laptop slowly closing it, knowing that this was not a statement but rather an order of some sorts.*
While I agree that hand written notes will always be better than typed, and yes, I still get nervous when the professor starts to move too quickly and my fingers feel like they are breaking and I may not get down every little word being said, I think it’s an interesting move as we are getting further and further engulfed in technology.
Professors are beginning to push back against this movement of technology, and I think it’s really smart. Our phones, IPads, Laptops, and Tablets do distract us, no matter how much we deny it and how many times we claim to be experts at multitasking. By no longer allowing us these distractions, we will actually be retaining more information, and when we hit midterms and finals we will actually be more prepared than we think.
It may be annoying to not have your phone to check every five minutes in class, or Facebook to scroll through on your computer, but really we should be thanking our professors that don’t allow this. They are actually helping us out so much more than we think. So, the next time your professor tells you that no electronic note taking is allowed, don’t internally groan or roll your eyes, embrace it.
