Laptop for university

[jesus]

Is it necessary? I'll be starting bachelor of commerce in January and I'm just wondering if a laptop is really that helpful. Since I work at best buy, I can get some discounts on laptops which is good so if I can get a good deal before I leave (which is before school starts) that would be nice.... but only if a laptop would be worth it

[=98=]

Re: Laptop for university

Nope, I do a computing/business degree and I don't think it is. Any time you'll need a PC in class, you'll be given one in labs. I thought mine would be damn useful, but the only time I use it is instead of my PC when i'm sitting downstairs watching Sky Sports News and working.

[jesus]

Re: Laptop for university

laptop is useless, and you're doing a computing degree? interesting... well when I went to the university for a "student for a day" program I would say about half the class (there were about 25 people) had laptops out but they were all on facebook lol

[=98=]

Re: Laptop for university

The only reason people take laptops to class is so they don't have to work. If you actually want to learn, take a pen and paper and type the notes up later if needs be.

But, like I said, if you are doing work that requires a computer, they will supply you with a lab full of them. The only time i've used mine in class was some cloud computing lessons.

[CaptainKirk]

Re: Laptop for university

I type my notes in two of my classes. I find my laptop extremely useful on a daily basis. A good deal of universities in the States require that all students have a personal laptop, anyways.

[jake_]

Re: Laptop for university

I've only met one person who actually uses his laptop for taking notes in class. Every single other person is on facebook the whole time.

[Dan2k3k4]

Re: Laptop for university

I think it's more popular in USA to use laptops then in the UK... at my Uni (Brunel, UK), there is about 20/250 students who use there Laptops... about 5 of them will take notes, the rest will have the presentation slides up and read through it... haven't noticed them on Facebook/YouTube (etc.) that much...

I just bought a laptop as it'd help me a lot since I commute for about ~2 hours every day to Uni (and 2 hours back) - so I'd be able to study and do coding during that time... I'll take notes during lectures, but probably not that much... I took notes 2 years back with pen & paper but I realized it's just a waste of time (well to me anyway, since I can remember everything, and ended up typing it all up during revision anyway)

If you're commutting it'd be worth it, as you won't need to carry the books either (unless you don't like reading e-books on your laptop), I bought the ASUS UL80vt-a1 off XoticPC with a 160 GB SSD, should have it by around the 18th December if my mate in USA get's it before he flies to Germany...

If you're not commutting then I think it's down to personal preference, some people would prefer writing notes on paper, others on laptops... if you want to learn, then you can always disable the wifi during lectures, but would you ever do that? It's not hard "resisting" sites like Facebook/YouTube...

[jesus]

Re: Laptop for university

I'd have no problems resisting facebook, youtube, MSN, etc.

I had no problems taking notes in high school with pen and paper. Is note-taking in university fairly similar?

[jake_]

Re: Laptop for university

I'd have no problems resisting facebook, youtube, MSN, etc.

I had no problems taking notes in high school with pen and paper. Is note-taking in university fairly similar?

I don't think I could ever resist the urge.

Plus, I've found that writing out notes helps me remember them more easily. The amount of active muscle involvement in writing or something just seems to help ingrain it more easily than typing does, for some reason. That goes for me, at least, but everyone has different learning styles; there's no universal best option.

[Dan2k3k4]

Re: Laptop for university

Yea... ^^

Plus note taking should only be that, "taking notes" - it shouldn't ever be "writing down every word you see on the slides in front of you" - since:
1) That's stupid and they give you the presentation slides in the intranet later on
2) The lecturers may have loads of text on the slides, making it impossible to write everything down
3) That's ****ing stupid ^_^

But yeah, everyone has there own style... I think I'm gonna take notes on some sort of mindmap program and just branch of words that I learn about... though I'll probably end up just doing it all in Word/OpenOffice with bullet points instead...

[iQue]

Re: Laptop for university

Tip is to take note of things that the lecturer says or other things that you won't find on a power point afterwards.

If you plan to only use it for taking notes (although you'll likely find other use for it later too), it's very handy to have all notes you take and other important stuff in one place. If I take notes on paper I tend to put them all in different places and never find it when I need it.

If you're an organised person and don't get cramps from writing with a normal pen for too long, not really that much need for a laptop/netbook, unless you can find other use for it. :)

[peeth]

Re: Laptop for university

At college (and what i plan to do at university next year) I take notes by hand and then type them up for revision, so i plan on taking a desktop and my eeepc, as I could then make the notes on paper, type them up and carry around as many notes as i want on my eee.

So i'd say useful for transporting lots of notes for reference, but not the best method of taking notes (diagrams take tooo long)