To current Duke students- Notetaking on laptops or by hand?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Duke University
1

Hi,

This question is more directed towards current Duke students. I was just wondering if students at Duke tend to take notes by hand or on laptops? I know typing is a lot faster than writing, but would professors slow down if we take notes by hand? Which would you recommend?

THANKS!

2

It really depends on the professor. Some professors are okay with you having laptops and taking notes, and others (usually the older ones) find it distracting and have a no electronics policy. Honestly, I prefer taking notes through my laptop, but I can see why some professors are against it; there was this one girl who sat in front me in my history class who used to to spend the entire lecture doing online shopping/

3

I take notes by hand only in a few classes the rest I do not take notes. In one particular class that had a ton of information, I recorded the lecture and then later on went over the lecture while handwriting notes in combination with reading the textbook for the class.

4

Have you thought about the Livescribe pen? Best of both worlds: writes like a pen but can be converted to digital.

5

@spuding102 Did you use a phone to record at the front of the room or…? Glad to know professors are ok with that!

6

@ldoc97 do the professors let us know about their preference for note taking on the first day of class? Not sure what to expect on the first day of college classes…

7

Yeah, during the first day of classes the professor will let you know. Some professors also have a policy in which one if one person is caught doing something other than taking notes on his/her laptop, the whole class will have to forfeit their laptop privileges for the rest of the year, so don’t do any online shopping while the professor lectures on about the Cultural Revolution

8

I recorded the lectures on my phone simple because they were clearer but I also recorded them a few times on my laptop. In that class, every person had a laptop out to look at the slides. In general, professors won’t care that you have a laptop out even if you are on Facebook. You can expect in basically all science classes and most humanities classes that most people will have both a laptop out and a notebook