Note Taking
How to capture a two hour lecture without transcribing it word for word. Cornell, outline, mapping and plain linear notes, compared on the coursework they were used for.
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The dividers
Six sections, one binder
Each section answers a different part of the same week: the lecture you are sitting in, the revision you owe it, the exam that closes it, and the life that has to fit around all three.
Revision Methods
Spacing, retrieval and interleaving, described as things you do on a Tuesday rather than as theory. Includes the timetables that survive contact with a real term.
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Exam Preparation
Past papers under the clock, mark schemes read before the answer is written, and the routine for the last days. What to do when the plan slips, which it does.
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Campus Life
The parts of the term nobody schedules: arriving, sharing a kitchen, sleeping enough to sit a nine in the morning class, choosing what to join and what to drop.
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Money
Budgeting on an income that arrives in lumps and leaves in trickles. Rent, bills, food, transport and the part time hours that pay for them without eating the term.
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First Job
Turning coursework, a summer job and a society role into a readable first CV. Then the placement interview, the reference request and the first month at a desk.
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The latest sheets
Browse Note Taking
Recently added to the bench
New guides are filed under the section they belong to and dated, so you can tell what was written for this year's timetable and what is older ground.
The Cornell page, six months later
The two column layout is easy to draw and easy to abandon. Here is what the page has to contain on the day of the lecture for it to still be useful in revision week.
A first CV when the experience column is thin
Coursework, a summer job and a society treasurer role are enough material for one honest page. What matters is which verb starts each line.
Spaced repetition without an app
Three boxes, a calendar and a rule about what moves forward. The paper version is slower to set up and much harder to quietly abandon.
The first fortnight, hour by hour
The two weeks that set the habits of a whole year. Which admin to clear on day one, and which invitations are worth saying yes to twice.
Past papers, timed and marked honestly
An untimed past paper measures nothing. The value comes from the clock, the closed book and the twenty minutes spent marking yourself afterwards.
A budget sheet that survives term one
Fixed costs, weekly costs and the small leaks in between. The sheet works when it is filled in on the same day of the week, every week.
Placement interviews: the questions that come back
The same handful of questions turns up in almost every placement interview. Preparing one example properly beats rehearsing five answers badly.
Typing or writing, in a two hour lecture
Typing keeps up and remembers less. Writing falls behind and forces a decision on every line. The honest answer is that the choice depends on the subject.
Flashcards that ask harder questions
Most cards test recognition and feel productive. Rewriting the front of the card so it demands an explanation changes what the pack is worth.
The last three days before an exam
Nothing new goes in. The work left is consolidation, sleep and rehearsing the first ten minutes of the paper until they are automatic.
Rewriting notes is not revision
Copying a page out neatly feels like work and produces very little memory. The same hour spent turning notes into questions produces a great deal.
Sleep and the nine in the morning lecture
A timetable with early starts is not a reason to give up on sleep. It is a reason to move the evening, which is the part actually under your control.
How the bench is kept
Start with revision methods
Method first, motivation second
Every guide describes something you can do this week with the materials you already own: a notebook, a printer, a calendar and whatever the reading list demands. Where a method has a known limit, the limit is written down with it. Guides are revised when the practice changes, and the date at the top moves with the revision.