Coming into my first year at Harvard, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from my classes and what I would need for them. So, doing as most college students do, I (and by I, I mean my parents) bought a Macbook knowing I’d need a high-speed, high-quality laptop to do a lot of my work on. And for my first year it worked out pretty well; I used it to take notes in some of my classes, write papers, and complete assignments. However, since I’m pre-med and a STEM concentrator (woo!), I wasn’t able to use my computer a lot for my bio and chem classes. For lecture, I’d take notes on the slide decks, which were printed out for us before every class, and for problem sets, I either had to copy everything onto lined paper or print them, which adds up cost-wise considering that printing at Harvard isn’t free. In addition to this, I had to spend time hole-punching slide decks, putting them into a binder and then lugging that binder around with me in my backpack whenever I was going to lecture or somewhere to study. After a few weeks, these binders got HEAVY, and it became more and more difficult to keep all my papers organized.
Sophomore year I was (unfortunately) prepared to do the same thing. And for the first few weeks of school, I did. This semester I’m taking Organic Chemistry (rip), and the slide decks for the lecture can be anywhere from 15-25 pages, along with problem sets that are usually 5-8. Lecture is three times a week, so with some ~quick maths~ you can see that I was carrying around A LOT of paper. But one thing new that I noticed this semester was that a lot of people were taking notes in class and doing their problem sets using iPads and the Apple Pencil. To me, this seemed like a much easier and more efficient way of doing things, so I again asked my parents if they would be so kind as to help me buy an iPad. Given that the new, 10.2-inch iPad that was released at the end of September is only $329, and the Pencil is another $100 (which is A LOT less expensive than I was expecting), my parents obliged. I bought my new iPad and Apple Pencil at the beginning of October and my life hasn’t been the same since.
My days of three-hole punching, binder-carrying, problem set erasing, and scanning documents with my phone are behind me. With my iPad, all my notes are in one place and are easily accessible. I don’t have to worry about losing them or combing through hundreds of pages to find what I’m looking for. That heavy binder that carried all those notes has now been replaced by a much more practical and lighter-weight alternative.
Also, this may sound silly, but using my iPad makes me slightly more excited to take notes and do problem sets. Using it is a lot more fun than using plain old paper; I have a huge selection of colors, I can change the thickness and texture of my writing utensil, I can move things around, change my writing to text, and erase with ease. My notes have not only become artwork, but they’re easier for me to follow.
This article is #notsponsored…but as you can tell I highly recommend getting an iPad if you can…who knows it might just change your life.