How do todays uni students take notes in lectures?

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ds is starting uni this year and is starting to think about what he will need. He will be commuting from home (free buses for under 22s in Scotland) and applying for the min maintenance loan to live off, so all that side has pretty much sorted itself as quite straight forward for him.

When lockdown/homeschooling started we bought him an 8GB, 15.6" laptop and an external monitor which should hopefully be ok for at least his first year at uni. We will probably need to buy him Microsoft Office as he is currently using the free download from school. Unless the uni provide this too?

For those who know a student at uni now or very recently, what do todays students use to take notes in lectures and organise notes? Is still mostly pen, paper, lots of folders and type up later/carry it all around with them or do they use tablets and a stylus and keep everything electronically?

He is doing engineering, which I guess would have very different needs from an essay based subject.

Many of the students I know now get handouts of lecture notes/presentations already online, and then possibly annotate those and/or print them out to annotate. Others seem to take notes on laptops, and some with notebooks and pen. I think that there is still a lot of merit in using notebook and pen, in terms of memory, being able to annotate and draw more easily, label things, put arrows etc (I know some online programs can do this too), but there's somethign different about not using a screen, and when so much of their learning and essay writing etc is on screen, it can be good in terms of memory to make their lecture notes different.

But it really varies from person to person, and from subject to subject.

Dd got an iPad and Apple Pencil. She loves it.

Depends on the course. Lots of laptops in law. Notebooks for language courses. Not sure about engineering.

Microsoft Office is definitely provided by Glasgow Uni and I would be surprised if this isn't the case for most other universities, given that it's a basic program set.

I’m a lecturer and I’d say most students have laptops or those small laptops…..notebooks? I don’t see anyone with paper and pen. A few have iPads. Just consider how far and for how long he will need to carry it, a 15” laptop is fairly heavy. Dd is at uni and leaves the laptop at home and takes an iPad to uni.

The uni should provide Office.

I work in a uni and as PP said many students use a laptop to make notes, or print out slides/handouts in advance and annotate them. Some use tablets.

We provides Office 365 for students, I'd imagine most universities would.

My experience (mature student) is as aeromocha says. I use a notebook and pen as I find writing it down helps with learning. For technical lectures I print out the PowerPoint slides before hand and make notes on them during the lecture. I’ve seen other students then make a cover sheet of key points for the lecture which is a very good idea and something I aspire to!

Some students have iPads and make notes using a stylus, others use a laptop, it depends on personal preference. All our lectures are recorded so you can easily revise them, we listen back at 1.5 speed if they talk too slowly!

Our uni provides Microsoft office. We’ve also had really good study skills sessions put on by the library team including effective note taking, so he might get similar and can pick up some techniques that will work for him.

I used a mac for lecture notes but this was a total pain with office.
Our uni didn't give us Office but I got a 4 year student deal so it was cheap.

Dc started off with pen and paper printouts but there was so much paper generated ..so they then bought an iPad and Apple pen and now they download and annotate lecture notes and save to laptop/ cloud

Tablets, laptops and yes, definitely notebooks - as in pen and notebook. although a PP has said not something she sees. I would say in my experience about 30% use notebooks. Maybe the subject in question has bearing on that. A few record the lectures. Quite rare to see people with print offs unless handed out in the classroom. Students also take photos of information with their phones.

@stripeyflowers

Tablets, laptops and yes, definitely notebooks - as in pen and notebook. although a PP has said not something she sees. I would say in my experience about 30% use notebooks. Maybe the subject in question has bearing on that. A few record the lectures. Quite rare to see people with print offs unless handed out in the classroom. Students also take photos of information with their phones.

I guess it does depend on the subject. All my lectures, the powerpoints are Available online prior to the session so I think people use electronic devices so they can annotate the ppt as we go along???

Laptops. Usually apple. They need these to do coursework anyway, tablets don't quite cut it.

Laptops. I don’t recall the last time I saw someone hand writing notes.
Although an alarming number of students esp post COVID don’t take notes…many of our students have lost some basic study skills.

My DD is about to graduate (science subject at Kings London). She's been practically paperless since the beginning (this was an aim of hers). She has used an iPad and Apple Pencil with a subscription app specifically for note taking. She's used a desk top computer for writing up, essay's etc. The vast majority of her work has been submitted online and exams have been too .

The uni will probably provide Office 365. I study as a distance learner and I use my Apple Pencil and a notes/PDF app (Nebo).

Lecturers put the notes up on a platform...student prints them off before class and then writes notes on them too.

Old fashioned paper usually. A few use tablets.

Did (stem subject) uses notebook and pen, as do most her friends regardless of subject.

Dd nor did (ffs)

Not, not nor (gives up)

Dd has a lenovo laptop that you can write directly onto. Doing a stem subject.

Interesting variety of answers. DD is about to finish an Eng lit degree and she uses a notebook and pen. I think she feels that typing esp in a seminar would really delay her.

Dd uses iPad and Apple Pencil, it was a Christmas present the year she joined university. We bought her a laptop when she finished GCSE and started A levels. She uses lap top to write essays etc but takes iPad to the lectures

The vast majority of students on my uni course had MacBooks. Some also had iPads and Apple pencils

@clary really surprised to hear that! I can type around 85-100 words or so a minute depending on how much thinking I have to do. Not a hope in hell I could write as quickly as I type!

@sweepeep

Lecturers put the notes up on a platform...student prints them off before class and then writes notes on them too.

Yes that's what I do.

Mature student and I do have huge amounts of print outs (and a lazer printer luckily) as I prefer to highlight make notes on physical paper than on a laptop version.