Students: Take note.

One of the requirements to achieve success in college courses and get that passing grade is to take notes.

There are several types of note taking students. There’s the traditional student armed with a notebook and pen or pencil. Then there’s the tech savvy student armed with a laptop or iPad.

Whatever type of note taker you are, here are some devices and methods students prefer to use while taking notes.

The good ole fashioned notebook

Sophomore musical theatre major Allie Griffey:

“Notebooks, I feel like are just easier to deal with,” Griffey said. “You can just throw them in your backpack verses computers which are really heavy and like there’s days where I don’t want to deal with my computer.

“A notebook is lighter and it’s easier because everything is in one place and I feel like that’s really helpful too. Also you can highlight, like you can highlight on a computer too, but it’s more fun in a notebook and you’re more focused and you’re not distracted by the computer to go on Facebook because it’s just paper and it keeps you more inclined to focus. It helps me stay focused.”

Freshman musical theatre major Lacy Stephens:

“I, often times, go back and put dots or stars next to things that are important to remember or sometimes I’ll circle or underline things in my notebook,” Stephens said. “It’s something that if I was on a computer, it’d be harder to do because I’d have to go through my notes and scroll up and down to look for it.”

iPad or tablet

Senior theatre major Eric Wilhite:

“It’s much easier for me to get my thoughts out on an iPad as oppose to writing,” Wilhite said. “If I type my thoughts out, my thoughts usually come faster than my hands can write. But I’ve been using a computer my entire life so I can type faster than I can write. I use the touch screen, but I also have a keyboard that I can attach but it just depends on how I’m feeling. I use Pages to takes notes on my iPad. Pages is like the Apple Word and iCloud transfers my notes I take on my iPad in Pages to my laptop and vice versa.”

Laptop

Senior finance major Terra Battaglia:

“I like to use my laptop because I feel like my notes are more efficient that way,” Battahlia said. “They contain more information and they’re easier to study off of. I especially like to use my laptop for when my teachers don’t use PowerPoint. One of my professors doesn’t even go on Blackboard or anything. He talks pretty fast and he’s really smart so it’s good to just know that I’m fast at typing versus trying to write it down. When I get time as I’m taking notes I definitely highlight terms and I’ll underline a section, but most important is getting it down and I definitely do go back when I have a second and highlight. I like to make it all organized and I think it’s so much easier to do so than a notebook. I use to go buy highlighters all the time and I feel like they’d just run out cause I used them so much.”

The attentive listener

Junior computer science major Martin Ramirez:

“The reason why I prefer to listen is because all my professors post all their stuff online so I find it better to listen and pay attention and follow along and then later on go over it,” Ramirez said. “Like a lot of people take notes but I feel like the information is online anyways so why write it down and copy it if you can access it online.”

Nicole Santos can be reached at [email protected].