Hiya everyone! As a massive ex-iPad-notetaking fan, I have a lot of notes I made for medicine - if you would like to download the PDFs (for free) check them out (link below) - there's one for Immunology and one for Anatomy. I'm really not sure why so many people have asked me for them, there's much better resources out there! But I do really hope they help 💙 www.elizabethfilips.com/studynotes

For a lot of science-heavy courses, I think having the ability to take notes free-handedly is just irreplaceable. Writing stuff down also helps with recall.

It’s funny how KZfaq recommended this to me the day after I bought my iPad Air

As a physics major I wouldn’t even consider taking notes on a laptop, it would just be impossible, my notes are more formulas and equations than actual words. I feel like every note-taking/study tips video I come across are from people who study medicine/chemistry/biology lol, math-based courses are on a totally different level and so different, would like to see more variety on KZfaq

As a medical student I couldn't imagine not using an iPad. I completely stopped using a laptop. You just can't draw a quick chemical structures or type a biophysics formulas on a laptop.

Me watching this on the ipad that i bought before a week :

I’m a 3rd year med student in Dublin and I actually had the opposite experience. I started off typing my notes at the bottom of the lecture PowerPoint but that wasn’t really an efficient way for me to study. My school always uploads the actual lecture slides so personally I found it a lot easier to import the slides to notability and just write my notes directly on the slides to review before exams. I think I just learn better that way so that’s what worked for me but I understand how typing would be better in your situation.

I think the iPad is still the way to go, as it allows you to do both handwriting and typing, which I consider to be very useful.

The funny thing is that I can do most things you mentioned with my iPad as well. Buying a MacBook wasn’t in my price range so I got an iPad and a Keyboard. I use notion on my iPad to take notes of the books I’m reading and I’m using GoodNotes for the lecture notes. I do have to say that I didn’t try it while having online school, but most of the specific things you mentioned are possible in GoodNotes. You can use the lasso tool to copy or move everything around, and you can open two documents in a split screen view. Sure, opening multiple tabs while having a smaller screen isn’t as easy, but I hope we won’t have online lectures for ever. In class, I usually have GoodNotes Open and if I have to look things up, I just quickly open google. This is not meant to be hate or anything. I just wanted to mention that some things are still possible if you have an iPad and most of these reasons only really apply if you have a laptop or computer.

I think it's really dependent on your area of study or what you primarily do. I work with a lot of academic research and its really, really advantageous to use an iPad to markup PDFs and things of that nature. Makes it very convenient to send back and forth to people you're working on a paper with.

Honestly, I think it depends on which program you are in. I would still use an Ipad. Our teachers post the slides in advance on the school website. I download them before the lecture and take notes directly on them. Plus there is a lot of graphs and problem-solving in my program (engineering), which is easier to do on an Ipad.

Laptops are definitely the way to go in med school! After a term of handwriting I had to make the switch 😭

I have been experimenting with this and it make sense there is no need of handwriting notes unless u are doing math !! The point is active recall sorts everything out perfectly!!

I've had the opposite experience as a medical student. I think, it depends upon from person to person. I owned a laptop in the 1st year of medicine, it was timetaking for me to switch it on and off everytime and even the charging process seemed difficult. Couldn't read while falling asleep, couldn't take it to places. With Ipad I use split screen when I need to multitask (video lectures on one side, and collanotes on the otherside mainly in landscape view) while using collanotes, I import pdfs/books/notes and add points I think is relevant. Moreover diagrams are much better with the apple pencil.

Writing helps you remenber things easier that is scienfically proven.

This is such a fresh perspective vs a lot of KZfaq content that promotes iPads as a must for med school 😭 Thankyou!!

Came to this late. Thanks so much for this truth. There's such a number of youtubers who make one think that without an ipad and goodnotes/notablity you are missing out on academic achievement. This makes so much sense. Gratitude for putting this out there

For the research on the spot issue, one can now open two screens at once, so you can split screen ti a browser. As someone mentioned previously also as a physics major, the iPad is life changing, especially when you use both your computer and iPad together for lessons, however I do see how it could be annoying for medicine.

To some extent I agree with you; however, if you're reviewing documents such as PDFs, a tablet with a pen is much more comfortable. Using a pen just releases the stress.

I'd like to point out that notetaking varies depending on major. Us engineering majors need a stylus or pen way more than other majors that don't need to do math, diagrams, tables, etc. on the fly. I'm not sure the iPad is worth the money, but an engineer definitely won't take as effective notes purely by typing.

I agree with every point you said. I was a religious iPad user for the first four years of my university and switched to laptop only in medical school. It’s been so much more better to put my notes into anki cards immediately after lecture, rather than having to go through so many hoops with an iPad

Honestly, I disagree! As a biology major who used the notebook/laptop combo for my first 3 years and then an iPad for my 4th year, I found using an iPad to be much more helpful and intuitive in regards to taking notes. Being able to download lecture slides in advance and mark them up saved me SO much writing/typing time. Also, taking notes on a laptop when you're taking classes that involve math/formulas/reactions/etc. is incredibly difficult. I used GoodNotes on my iPad and found it much easier to navigate than any note-taking app on my laptop.

Informative, genuine, charming, knowledgeable, good vibe and doesn’t fill the video with unnecessary details. Please keep it the good work... I can’t wait for the next video. With love from Finland

Sounds like your issue wasn’t the iPad but the software. You can also type on an iPad and can screenshot without having to save them in photos.

This is definitely personal to the way a particular person learns. There is not an end all, be all method that will work for everyone. Writing is actually how I learn, so for me the iPad has been extremely helpful, but I know others who prefer other ways of absorbing class material.

I think the iPad has it's pros and cons. I've actually gone through most of law school with an old iPad Air and a laptop case, which was the laptop-ized version of an iPad before the iPad Pro was a thing lmao. It was okay, I liked it because it was really portable but the os had it's limitations (some of which have been overcome with the creation of the pro line, of course! but others are still there, inherent to the fact that it's still an iPadOS). When I retired that iPad, I was in this one predicament: should I buy a MacBook Pro/air or an iPad Pro? Pricepoint wise they were all pretty similar (and steep) so I was willing to spend for either of the three. I ended up buying a MacBook and I stand by that choice. I've been tempted to buy an iPad every now and then but I think it's more a whim kind of thing. I think you should consider a few things: - Is an iPad going to make you more prone to do work on it? Are you going to enjoy it more? If you enjoy it, it'll totally boost your productivity and will only end up with good things like engaging more in class. - What kind of work do you need to do? Is a laptop going to be more stable for you? Or do you think you'd like the versatility of an iPad? - Are you going to want to use an external monitor? (I do, and it's the best 300 bucks I've spent in a while. Makes doing homework/preparing documents for work SO MUCH EASIER AND COMFORTABLE). My solution? I bought the MacBook Pro first and foremost and then I got a rocketbook notebook (for taking notes in class and random little notes). 1) The MacBook works fantastic for my needs and I do genuinely like the fact that it's not an iPad (because I think I personally view the iPad as more of a fun time item instead of work lmao, idk, maybe it's silly). 2) The rocketbook notebook, on the other side, has helped me reduce my paper usage by a lot and it also makes taking notes a lot more fun to me (and has removed the amount of clutter I was accumulating).

I’m interest in the note taking during lecture video can’t wait!! This video gave me so much to think about, you brought up really good points🤔

PRO TIP for taking a screenshot on mac : Press the control button in addition to the shift+cmd+4 combination and your screenshot will be COPIED as if you copied a text and then you can simply paste it! ;) makes the whole process much smoother and with less friction. good luck!

I’m an iPad user since the lockdown probably after watching this video I do feel a laptop or MacBook for my choose would be more productive! Thanks for the video 😃 Very much helpful 👌

Truly refreshing! Never thought a video about taking notes could be so soothing 😅 thanks !

This is really great video! I have been looking for efficient ways to take notes so I would love it if you made a video about detailed note taking! 😃

i would just like to say that using REM note has changed my life. seriously, it’s already got the bullet point system that i’ve been using for my handwritten notes for AGES, plus it creates flash cards directly from your notes. For me, it’s the perfect hybrid between Notion and Anki with a few nice add ons like cross referencing and REMs.

This is a great set of recommendations, thanks for sharing this with us!

Got here from Ali’s story. Glad I found you gurll.....cuz u r just awesome!!!

wow, the stars must've aligned really well for you. My professors go at 2x speed during calls, idk if I'm alone in this, but I can't understand shit.

All of this can be done on an I pad and u have that option of writing stuff down just in case you need to ! Making diagrams and other things might take lesser time when done by hand !

I am very early on in the video at this point, but you said you switched from writing notes on your iPad to taking laptop notes. Physically writing your notes will help with memorization. Typing your notes is proven to have a negative impact on memorization. You can, reasonably quickly, take full screenshots from the iPad itself instead of taking a pic using your phone, etc. I think you made the switch too soon rather than learning the tool you had at hand. But hey, whatever works for you.

Hey, I’m here from Ali’s IG! Nice content. Wish you the best of luck.

I'm a fan of an iPad for engineering and mathematics because you are able to draw out graphs and work out problems where you couldn't on a computer; nice video!

Very very true! I find working from a laptop way more efficient. I tried using an iPad but just found it took way too long. great video

Oh ipad, if you have a external keyboard, you have the same commands. And you have the advantage of touchscreen for your screenshot.

I have been using my laptop as principal note maker. But nowadays, I think hand notes are much more effective. And that's why i bought it a few hours ago and KZfaq recommended it now. What a wonderful algorithm!

08:38 "Even though no one ask for that video..." Well, I was going to ask. So thank you. And BTW you won me over, and I am now subscribed. Your frank, honest and transparent way of communicating is such an attraction. Great video.

Great insight!! Learned alot of things today and this knowledge shall be passes down from one person to another

There are a lot of medical students here on youtube who advocate not taking notes at all..many put more energy into capturing key items into flashcards and some reformulate concepts into more visual models like mind maps etc. I agree with many here that it probably "depends"...on the are of study, personal style etc. However, you do bring up some interesting points. One issue I have always had is the lack of legibility of my own handwriting (self encrypted HA). I do believe that graphical summary and markup can be helpful.

“Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” Sharing some positivity with ya all

This is so strange to me being born and brought up in India. I can't really imagine taking notes on any sort of electronic device, it has to be pen and paper. It's a much more deeper connection to me immediately to write down something, it carves in my memory better. How do you write exams? Those are also on Mac or PC? Without practice, the writing would be very slow and handwriting would be so bad as well.

Here at ~5K subscribers. And thank you for your tips & advice. Keep it coming!

I have both a Macbook and an iPad and their interconnectivity is incredibly useful. I use my iPad for notes during and after my lectures whilst I use my Macbook for homework and research. The feel of a laptop whilst typing up documents and making powerpoints isn’t the same if I were to be using a magic keyboard due to the ergonomics. Although both are portable and I take on the go all, theres a difference between the two if I were to take them out of my backpack.

Kicking it off right at the first video! Huge respect! a few thoughts from a fellow KZfaqr: 1 Good audio and video quality which is great! 2 Make sure to look at the camera. I know it's difficult in the beginning so you may want to use your back camera if you use your phone or don't have a mirror of yourself at all. Imagining you're talking to somebody else may help, too. 3 I like the light in the background (but would dim it a bit as it shines quite bright) 4 Make sure to keep the intro as short as possible. 20 seconds in I still don't really know what this is about and what my benefit from this video is (YT audience is terribly impatient :p) Keep it up I'm sure it's worth the effort!

Hey Elizabeth, I actually do all of what you do on my iPad in quick timing. I think people can still find iPads very useful for university.

10 years ago I had the pleasure to learn from your mom, and now I have the pleasure to learn from you😊🥰

Thank you for the insight!

Love the content and love that you made that move...🙌🏼🤗🙌🏼🤗

Thank you for making this video on ipad notetaking discussing just the opposite side of the coin, it definitely helped me.

Would like to see an in-depth video on the differences between taking iPad notes to computer notes. Also could you provide your first year notes? Going to study med from next year at St. George’s so will be a good refresher just having something to go over. Overall a good quality video with to the point explanations. Looking forward to see more videos from you.

So basically I should wait to see how the first few semesters of my CS grad curriculum go before I invest in an iPad. Gotta separate my materialistic desire from need 😂

"They're here. I can touch them, I can feel them, [camera zooms in] they're mine." lol

I think it depends on your major. As a (pre law) criminal justice and sociology major w/ ADHD using a iPad AND a laptop is essential for me.

The thing is, I use study methods such as active recall, spaced repetitions and flashcards. Zero notes at all but I have an ipad air. I use it for textbooks instead because I can get pdf version of my college textbooks and its way cheaper and easily accessible and I can just do everything with my ipad including writing on a planner and so on. I also can download pdf versions of any books I want to read or epub and I can access it to my ipad. I can do my typing on ipad as well especially since my 15 inch laptop is really heavy to carry around. I can just edit my typed notes at home with my windows laptop but for everyday carry and everything else the ipad is way to go.

Yes I agree. I'm an industrial engineering student, so it is handy to use an IPad, due to the heavy math part. But for medical students it really isn’t as beneficial, as for math students. But it is nice to have 😂

At least for me, the issue arises when anything mathematic comes along. Sure you can write your notes in LaTeX, but that’s time consuming and near impossible to keep up with. I have yet to find an effective way to create graphs, math equations, and diagrams using a keyboard. That said, I still love my laptop and prefer it over the iPad for anything other than note taking, but I think the iPad still has its place

yesss i agree! i’m an a-level student personally (so not quite the same as in uni lol, much less work but i think still somewhat relevant), and i use my laptop for eVERYTHING, i do use my ipad too, but not for notes, it just doesn’t work for notes for me, and i couldn’t use it as a laptop substitute and type my notes either (although i have the 2018 ipad tbf). i do use it a lot though don’t get me wrong - i use it daily for online school work, mostly just questions and stuff, and it’s very helpful, but totally not necessary at all!

I really thought at first that it would be a generic "being different than the crowd" type of video but you really had some valid points that i personally have come across in the past.

love the content here :) keep it coming

I feel dumb why did I always use command shift 3? 😂😂😂

I'd say it depends on what you study. As an engineering student, it would be counterproductive for me to note down derivations using my MacBook. I will say however, you really don't need the latest iPad on the market. I use one of the first versions to come out with Apple Pen compatibility and it serves me just fine.

Thank you for a fun and informative video! :)

Yess. I ALWAYS use the screenshot function. If you do CMD + SHIFT + CTRL + 4, you can actually save the image onto your clipboard, so you don't even need to drag the image from the bottom right corner. I usually use a clipboard history saver extension as well

I was just about to take one thanks for this video dude!

Those are very useful tips. Thank you 😊

Thank you! It was really great, you should post more videos about your academic experience and study methods!! Good luck with everything :))

Clicked the link on your IG.... absolutely love the content!! Keep it up!

I use OneNote and I can upload the whole lecture slides to a page and write around them :) it’s very useful if you wanna try that out

Love the insight!

Informative,thanks.🙂

Thank you for this video! Taking note is very low yield, I just use Anki for everything

You're thinking exclusively about what is most efficient, fastest, most practical, most logical. Some people just enjoy writing their notes. Not everything is a rat race.

Thank u so much for saving my money❤ love ya keep smiling😘

I entirely hear what you are saying. I use OneNote & it is annoying how Microsoft has not added multi-window support for this on iPadOS. I guess aside from that, knowing that certain programs have limitations compared with their desktop counterparts, I just do not have the same problems as I use a keyboard & trackpad with my iPad Pro. Regarding the latter, I suppose I just like interacting with my machine in that way as opposed to a clam-shell. You are not wrong Ms. as I agree with you regarding a lot of what you said. Ultimately, I think we both would’ve made out better if we were using Microsoft Surface Books instead 😂

Thank you for the follow up video! I would have asked ☺️

This video is a year and a half old, but it got recommended to me so it's safe to assume it's still getting recommended to others as well. I just wanted to add my thoughts here from somebody on the other side of this argument. Use what works for you, not what somebody tells you is "better" or more efficient. I don't know why, but handwriting my notes is infinitely more important for making things stick in my head than any other note taking or study technique. When I first started university, I tried the whole taking notes on a laptop thing because it seemed so many people were doing it and I thought that was what I should be doing now that I'm taking big boy university classes, but after one semester all taking notes on a laptop did was quadruple my study time because instead of picking up a lot of the information in lecture, I was leaving lecture with very little understanding of what was going on and relying on my own studying to "teach" me a majority of the information that I feel I would have previously walked out of lecture already knowing. I watched all sorts of videos on the benefits of note taking on a laptop and the best methods for doing it, and yes, there are advantages like the ones mentioned in this video, but it doesn't matter at all that I can take a screenshot easier or copy paste something from google easier if I'm absorbing the content at a slower rate because of it. Cool, now I've got all this extra info and functionality in my notes, but instead of studying max 1 hour a day, I'm studying 4 hours a day because none of that stuff stuck in my head. I'm 27 now and going back to school for another degree and I bought an ipad this time around to take notes with, the functionality that the different note taking apps give is so insane compared to when I was first in school writing all my notes in a notebook, it allows me to still take my handwritten notes, but also make my notes so much more in depth and well organized. Sure, it may take me longer to get my notes super well organized and in depth with pictures and annotations and stuff, but it's still less time than I spent studying taking notes on a laptop. Now all I do is use some flashcards in my downtime and a couple other active recall methods every now and then and I'm good to go. Also, I'm not saying that taking notes on a laptop is bad or inferior in any way, there are some people who don't struggle to retain info while typing notes and so it's just objectively better for them to choose the more efficient way, which is typing. There are some people who might not be very good at retaining info directly from lecture either way and they're gonna have to study a ton no matter what, so again it's gonna just straight up make more sense to choose the most efficient way. But for anybody who is like me, the reduction in note taking time/increased functionality when using a laptop doesn't outweigh the increased time spent trying to retain the info after lecture. TL;DR If handwriting notes is your preferred method, don't switch to a laptop just because somebody tells you it's better or more efficient.

Hey! As a High school student, knowing absolutely nothing of university, I'd just like to say that you really inspired me today! My dream is to become a doctor, and my passion is art, so you starting your video saying you're an med student and an artist is just inspiring to me. Thank you! Btw, I already prefer my computer for studying, but I'd love to buy an iPad for Procreate and mobility, so I get the best of both worlds! Yay!

Your review is best u have no idea how much value u've provided your review is the best. I was on the verge of getting an ipad instead of macbook after watching tons of reviews I somehow convinced myself for students ipad is good macbook is more for professionals. Man I was wrong. Thank you sooo much

iPads are so good studying engineering. I have pages of handwritten maths/equations examples and lecture notes that I can annotate. I usually watch prerecorded lectures on my laptop and annotate the slides on my ipad.

I watch this video now as I am trying to shift from pc to iPad. I had a smooth workflow on pc especially due to snipping screenshots and anki combo ,which was essential in the last year where I had little time to write notes. iPads are quite restricted on the screenshots however using the shortcuts app I managed to make a shortcut copy directly to clipboard the right half of my screen which I then paste onto anki. I don’t see yet myself using notability but the iPad is going to be worth the change just because of its portability as a resident.

In terms of note taking, I think everything you can do with a laptop you can do with an iPad, but not everything you can do on an iPad you can do on a laptop. You can split your screen on both, you can type on both of coarse if you stick a keyboard to your iPad!, but you can only draw diagrams and charts and illustrations on an iPad.

I bought an iPad for school and I only use my apple pencil to write on my digital personal journal and to sketch. I feel like buying a keyboard and mouse made me improve my studying and also the active recall method is what's best for me now. I'm a law student so I have no time to do any handwriting work. I think it's fine if you're in high school or middle school but for college you'll need to befriend your keyboard and Notion lol Some people saved a lot to buy an iPad so if you can't buy a new laptop the keyboard and mouse will be your best choice.

Made a year long research and asked my self whether I should get an iPad. And in the end I ended up getting a laptop and I am soon planning to get a drawing tablet.

For screenshotting, you can also press the control ^ to take a copy and just paste it instead of wasting space.

I have a question! When you mention Zoom meetings are so slow, I am curious because to me they run way too fast. Besides being a language barrier for me, since I have been speaking fluent English for 11 years, it is still very hard to take notes I can't imagine having time to screenshot, ask google, etc. Any tips or videos to help me speed up my concept catching while listening?

Love the video 😁❤️

Handwriting is definitely better for note taking. Computers are too constricting. I used good notes and in like organic chemistry, all those reactions and molecules trying to recreate those on the computer with chem draw or something takes 10 times longer than just drawing it but hand, and I have preset stickers for different common shapes in organic chemistry that make it even faster and neater. Definitely get a computer before getting an iPad, because for essays your going to need a computer and a lot of courses may want you to download a program for work. Like in Orgo Lab I needed Master Nova to process NMR data. For reasons like this even though the iPad is great it can’t completely replace the computer, however using an IPad for school work is extremely convenient.

have you ever tried having the same document opened on both the computer and the iPad? I've been using a surface book to take notes for my whole degree, constantly switching between tablet and laptop configuration. It was pretty annoying, but I made some great documents.

Idk if I'm completely right or not since I'm not an owner of a newer ipad with apple pencil support, but I believe there is a function to turn hand writing into text easily. I plan on getting a new ipad for my sixth form so I can take notes in class, I don't know how to study much as I missed that part of year 11, but I've been researching and apparently hand writing helps with sinking into your brain a lot more efficiently than typing. It would be helpful to write down notes and see them on my imac, I plan to use one note as it's very organised. I also don't want to be depending on usb and loose one like my sister did. But I guess it's all up to the user and thier preferences

Thank you so much for this video, I was thinking which one should I buy for my college now

I just Found Your Channel in my Recommended And Now I am Watching All Your Videos😂 I am Obsessed Help me 😭😂❤️ You are Amazing 💖

Thank you so much you have no idea how much this video helped thanks alot

your feelings are completely valid but as a graphic design student and ipad is definitely a must have for on the go edits and designs but i may be a bit biased as my professor recommended one

For me as a med student it's definitely ipad!! And i get why a lot of med (or any science major) are falling in love with ipad, the thing is i find it really practical in note-taking wither it was drawing or adding notes to your book (pdf) or making mind maps that you can reach to by only one click and its cheaper and can easily be as good as a laptop by just adding a keyboard while i can't just remove the keyboard from my laptop to write or take decent notes in a comfortable way, so like ipad is a laptop when you want and a notebook (that you can write in faster and prettier!) when you want & for me personally that it's smaller and easy to reach and open faster made a huge different for me SPECIALLY in person college it saved me a lot that i don't need to carry around a huge laptop or a notebook (that took a lot of time bc i sometimes needed to retake them on my laptop) now just the ipad doing both notebook and laptop work in a small more practical way, after 3 years with laptops finding ipad was so comfortable for me so i think it depends on your major, mg brother could never buy an iPad bc he depends on coding a lot and some majors might need them both my other brother have formulas more than words so it's hard to take notes on laptop but he also needed a laptop for big specifics apps thar can't be on ipad but other than that he would everything on ipad while practicing on laptop