#highschool advice

Stop trying to hand out misery to those who AVOID it. No one cares what you think.

How I Take Notes!

Hello friends, hope everyone is doing well and staying safe! With the new semester starting in a little under two months, I thought it would be a good time to make a post on notetaking. Notetaking is one of my absolute favorite ways to learn material that I’m being taught in class. I am a very visual and kinesthetic learner, so the action of writing something down, and being able to look back at something is extremely beneficial to me. I have always despised reading through textbook chapters multiple times, so taking notes in a way that I like makes the learning process more enjoyable to me as well. Although my note taking process may seem intensive and unnecessary to some, this is how I have managed to get by so far.

1. Finding a notetaking style and tool:

There are several different notetaking styles that can be utilized. The two most common ones are either the outline method, or the Cornell notetaking method. I have always followed a version of the outline method- the Cornell method never caught my attention. There are advantages and disadvantages to both styles, but here is a general overview of what each looks like.

Apart from choosing the way you want to take notes, it’s helpful to choose what you want to use to take your notes. I prefer taking notes in notebooks, that I organize by class. I did try taking digital notes once the pandemic hit, but I realized that I despised having to look at a screen in order to study after spending hours watching lecture recordings. I will be going back to taking more detailed notes on paper, but will continue to use digital notes during lectures.

2. Picking a color scheme:

This is something that is based on personal taste, there is absolutely no need to pick a color scheme. Like I said, I am a visual learner, so using a few colors helps me divide the content in my notes and points out key information. I also like to use colors to differentiate between main and subheadings as it helps me keep my notes organized. I used to use a different pen color for literally every line (see image on the left below), but now I realize that it looks like rainbow throw up- I have now become more streamlined in my color choosing process LOL

3. Taking the notes:

In high school, I used to sit in class with my all my pens in my giant pencil bag and make my colorful notes during the lectures. This was doable for me since high school teachers tend to give their lectures at a slower pace so that it is easy for everyone in the room to grasp. However, once I got to university, that became extremely difficult since professors tend to speed through the material in order to cover all the topics.

With that transition, I realized that there were two ways I could go about this:

1. Take time before class to take lecture notes and then add in any details on the side during the lecture. This does help in being more prepared for lectures, but it is time consuming, and requires a tad more motivation to get started. This was especially useful for classes like OCHEM, where the professor would give tips and tricks to understand the numerous reaction mechanisms. For me, having the notes prewritten made it easier to follow along, and understand what he was describing.

2. Take “messy” notes in class and then take time after class to redo my notes in a way that I found useful. If a class is very slide-based, I also will just type out any additional details onto the slides, and then review them after class. This is usually what I do- take messy or scribbled notes on my laptop during class, and then take time after class to take more detailed notes.

For certain classes, the professor may not cover all the details necessary to be successful in the class (these to me are the ABSOLUTE worst kind of prof). In this case, I maintain a separate notebook where I would take notes from the textbook. This would help me fill in any missing gaps from class, and also give me another chance to look through the material.

After taking my notes, I go back through them, and highlight key words/vocabulary to make it easier to see when I review them in time for exams.

4. Using the notes:

Taking the notes, sometimes doing it twice, is extremely time consuming, so it’s important that you put them to good use. I generally only use my notes when I am trying to study for my exams. I find that with the amount of detail I put into my notes, I don’t have to reference textbooks or slides very often.

I also use my notes to make what I call “One-page reviews.” This was a technique that my high school bio teacher had us use in order to prep for or class exams. The idea behind this is to organize the topics and concepts you learned in a unit on a single sheet of paper. This helps keep every key information on one sheet, and helps you connect the dots between concepts as well.

By doing this before every single unit test/class test, it will also make it significantly easier when it comes around to studying for finals- you already have detailed review sheets prepared!

So yeah! This is a rough overview of my notetaking process. I may have skipped over some details, since a lot of this is up to personal preference. No single method works for everyone- it's all a matter of trial and error to see what works best for you. If you have any questions or want me to clarify anything at all, feel free to reach out! I hope this helps 😊

Hiya lovelies I have some advice about going into highschool, I’m about to start my first year of college and my senior year of highschool, I’m in the top 6 people in my graduating class and a member of the National Honors Society at my school, so as that person these are really my biggest tips for you:

Take classes that interest you and try to take them in a format that you can understand, so like I'm better at lecture style courses than I am at hands on courses, and I am going into stem so I took a bunch of science classes. But also you want to keep in mind the requirements you need to graduate. 

I'm doing an early college program, I don't know if they have it where you are but basically you do your senior year of highschool at a state college and the state pays for it, which is a pretty neat way to save money on college tuition. 

One of the things that was drilled into my head is that you're building your college resume from day one, so you want to get involved in a lot of different activities around your school, so I did. science olympiad, drama, student council, mentoring, a community outreach group called interact, I was a student liaison for a committee that revised the scholarship application rules for one of the colleges nearby my school, I taught origami and astronomy to middle level students, worked with NASA's Space System Ambassadors in my state...the list goes on really and I don't think that you should really do as much as I did because I definitely got really tired and had to cut some things when I got a job but definitely community service is a big thing especially if you want to get into things like The National Honors Society. 

But yeah you wanna build an extracurricular resume because if you're applying to selective colleges everyone is gonna have good grades so they look at what you did outside of school to figure out if they accept you or not. 

But yeah, do your homework, make sure your teachers like you, help them out when you can and be someone they can rely on because later you'll need their help in things like letters of recommendation and stuff. 

As a goodie two shoes I am anti drugs and partying as a fundamental thing, and try to take care of your body, get enough sleep and drink water because you don't wanna burn out.

You don’t have to take perfect notes to be a great student or to get the most of the class. You just have to do things in a way that works for you, if thats re-reading textbooks, making models of the stuff you learned, making flashcards, watching or listening to khan academy things then do it. Not everybody benefits from practice testing either for some it's just stressful and if it is, don’t do it, find another way to learn the information. 

One thing I realized was that the moment I stopped thinking about it as a competition was the moment that I started to actually learn. My anatomy and physiology class I was pretty content as like “the kid who was pretty smart” and didn’t worry about doing better than my peers and just had fun with the class and guess what!? I can still remember just about everything I learned in that class over a year later. AP Bio was a mess, it was only a competition it was stressful and I remember nothing like a month later. So find a way to make what you’re learning fun, find a way to connect it to something interesting to you. For Anatomy I would find a disease that connected to the system I was learning and then how that disease worked, and I would find crazy ones like Porphyria (vampire disease (you know I love my vampires)) and it helped me connect what I was learning to the real world a bit better and it was more fun so I remembered it.

Let your teachers know what you’re interested in!! I told my history teacher I liked astronomy and he hooked me up with the guy that was doing a history of the school observatory and I wrote an essay and got a big scholarship and I started working with astrophysicists and @nasa ‘s Vermont System Ambassadors and it’s all because I liked astronomy and had built a reputation for myself as someone who was invested in learning and wanted to push myself to learn more. So tell your teachers your interests, it will help somehow probably.

I know we can’t do this right now cause of covid-19 BUT

when you graduate or move school the next time that school had like a ‘open day’ (*)

Go to it! you can see how the school changed, what teachers are still there any new activities they do, who won the school awards, see your favourite teacher etc

But also You can fuck around and be a pain in the ass the the bad teachers I’M NOT SAYING to go and vandalize the school or be out right mean to the staff but If the principal (like mine was) was a complete asshole, be passive aggressive Her: How have you been? Me: Oh yeah great! therapy starting to help, I go to a new school who are really wonderful, helping me catch up on all the work that you guys didn’t teach me, I feel so supported now days

Calling staff by their first name It’s so funny

Teacher: I didn’t expect you to be here, what a lovely surprise Me: Yeah, I wanted to see what the school is like after I left, how are the year 7s going Rachel

Draft plan:

1) Day of

Lecture notes

maybe annotate powerpoints or take notes next to it while the teacher is presenting?

if my teacher doesn’t give me a powerpoint, just write my own notes

Vocab and Questions

after school

make a separate column with vocab words and questions

add vocab and questions to a spaced repetition sheet?

2) Rewrite notes

Rewrite notes (maybe during the weekend?)

organize

add pictures

summarize

practice

3) Study

go over notes and practice

I’m not quite sure...

1. Try your best to not use the school bathrooms. Clogging happens.

2. Your 1st period teacher might let you eat in class. Take full advantage of this.

3. Bring a jacket with pockets. They handy.

4. Keep your most used supplies in those pockets.

5. When walking in the halls try to stay to the right. This will cut down on hall traffic.

6. Find multiple ways to get to class. I go to a large school and the most obvious way of getting to class is always the most crowded.

7. Have a few dollars on you. Vending machines and bake sales happen.

8. Elective teachers might let you chill in their classrooms before school/ during lunch. This is an easy place to make friends.

9. Try to have at least one friend in each class. They'll help you on homework and take notes when you're absent.

10. Make friends on the bus ride to/from school. They'll save you a seat.

Here we go....the year we’ve all been waiting for😆

It’s been a while guys! This will most likely be my last post as a high schooler since I will be graduating on the 21st! Oh boy let me tell you, this year was probably my best year since I got to leave school early everyday! It’s been a fun ride, but let’s get on to the advice!!

Academics:

A lot of small assignments are assigned the first semester (at least at my school) and the big assignments such as your senior paper or portfolio are due the second semester.

ABSOLUTELY make sure you know exactly what you’re talking about in your senior paper and that you don’t put it off until the last minute. I don’t know about your teacher, but my teacher is making us do a formal 5 minute presentation about our paper so make sure you know what you’re talking about.

Beware of senioritis.

If you know you’re going to college, TAKE those DUAL ENROLLMENT classes because it’ll help you get a jump start in college. For example, I took an English dual enrollment course and now I don’t have to take English in college because I earned the credit while in high school.

Speaking of college, APPLY EARLY. The earlier you apply, the sooner you’ll find out about your acceptance and you’ll have more time looking for scholarships.

Figure out what colleges you want to apply to the summer before your senior year, that way you’re a step ahead of everyone else!

It’s okay if you don’t know what you want to major in. Lots of people don’t know what they want to do and they eventually figure it out while they are attending college!

Make sure you have all the credits you need to graduate high school and to go to the college you want to go to before it’s too late.

This year goes by FAST so make sure that you do your work and pass all of your classes before the final grades are put in. FYI colleges do look at your final transcripts so you still need to do well in your classes even if you don’t need that credit to graduate.

PAY YOUR FEES or else you’ll be held back from graduating. DONT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE.

BUY THE YEARBOOK!!!

Health:

Don’t stress too much about college applications. If a college doesn’t accept your application then it’s not a huge deal. There are always chances to try again in the future.

The second semester can be quite stressful if you’re doing your senior paper so just relax. There’s no need to rush and get it done as long as you start it when the paper is first assigned.

If you guys are anxious, don’t be. Presentations can be the worst things to happen to you but 5 minutes isn’t really that long of a time. Believe me, I have social anxiety too but I’m working on it.

Look nice and well groomed when it’s picture day. It’ll be in your last high school yearbook so make it look good!

Try not to have drama. It’s your last year and you might never see those people again after graduation.

Social Life/Clubs:

Go to every game/school event that’s going on! It’s your last year so those games will be the last games you see as a high schooler!

Spend time with all your friends as much as you can! Like I keep repeating, it’s your last year and you may never see them again!

GO TO PROM. It’ll be the one and only time you’ll be able to go (if you didn’t go your junior year). It doesn’t matter if you have a date! Lots of people go to prom with just their friends and they have a perfectly good time!

This is the year where you turn into a legal adult! Go vote! (Americans)

If you’re going away to college, make sure to hang out with your family a bunch before you move out. You’re going to miss them and they’re going to miss you!

And if you’re not going to college, get a job that helps support your family and eventually yourself so that you can move out and live your own life.

I crawled my way through the first year of high school so I thought I could give some tips ive picked up. Clichè as some of these are, it’s what I’ve learned. I had a lot of anxiety and I didn’t know what to expect so if you’re in the same boat I was, stick around  👉😎👉