[John-Ellis]

Hi All,

I have enrolled on a college course on Visual Basic.NET, to get my qualifications so I can start a career in software development and programming.

I am 29 years old and I have not done any further education since leaving school so naturally i am a bit nervous but also very excited.

I was wondering if anyone had any hints or tips for taking notes to use for revising for final assessments and exams, how do you pick out the best information from pages of text that is going to be most useful.

Thanks very much

John

[PsychoCoder]

Moved to Student Campus

[eker676]

I'm not in college yet but the bottom line is, code, code, code. Sure reading the book helps with new ideas but you have to write little snippets of code to test things and reinforce ideas.

I would take notes for the obscure things you learn that may or may not be on the final. As obscure I mean the topics you barely cover. Just jot something down that you will help you remember what it was about.

Things you can refrain from taking notes about is the basics. (Some may disagree but I think its a slight time waster) The only way to learn the basics is to code. When the semester is over you won't need those notes on variables, looping, conditionals, etc. They will be hardcoded into your brain.

This post has been edited by eker676: 28 March 2010 - 07:52 PM

[SpeedisaVirus]

eker676, on 28 March 2010 - 06:50 PM, said:

I'm not in college yet but the bottom line is, code, code, code.

That's the answer. Start with small things and the more complex it gets the more you will have to look up and the more you will learn by applying it.

[NeoTifa]

As for taking notes, DO NOT write down everything the professor says, but merely just jot down notes on things you think are important, might be on the test, or that you might forget. That's why they call it notes and not course text. lol. Your notes should just be a paraphrasing of the course. Unless of course it's a math class, then you wanna write everything down lol. They should probably look like a bulleted list in a way that they're not quite complete sentences unless they're important, a quote, or you feel they need to be.

[JoshD]

John-Ellis, on 27 March 2010 - 05:25 AM, said:

Hi All,

I have enrolled on a college course on Visual Basic.NET, to get my qualifications so I can start a career in software development and programming.

I am 29 years old and I have not done any further education since leaving school so naturally i am a bit nervous but also very excited.

I was wondering if anyone had any hints or tips for taking notes to use for revising for final assessments and exams, how do you pick out the best information from pages of text that is going to be most useful.

Thanks very much

John

im second year of college in UK (before uni).
How are you assessed?
50% theory (theory of code)
50% practical (code)

For the practical, it has already been said, code, code, code, code, code.
Literally, a mate in his first year, he did console applications, he had his tutor write him 30 programs, getting increasingly difficult. Starting with things as simple as writeline increasing through arrays finally to using text files (thats as difficult as it got for him in the first year) and he coded each one over the course of a couple of months and he was WELL ahead of his class. Once he did this, the teacher gave him less info for all the problems than she did to the other students, so if they got given a problem and a bit of pseudo code, all he got was the problem. If they got a problem plus the hints of what things they would need to use, he still only got the problem... sure he usually got to the answer a different way to the rest of the class, but his way was usually more effecient.
And by the end of the year, he was teaching the teacher new methods (the teacher didn't specialize in VB.NET).

So this just proves that code, code, code really works, and dont jump into something that has LOADS that you don't know how to do, just add one new thing to your program each time. Step-by-step.

If you do any theory... well that's a Biatch to learn. For that it really depends on you. For me, i draw pictures and diagrams, and huge colourful mind-maps (brainstorms, spider-diagrams, whatever the heck you wanna call it)... but thats cuz im a visual, kinesthetic learner.

JD

[John-Ellis]

Thanks for the replies everyone, im well into my course now, completed book one and just about finished the first assignment.

Cant wait to start book two and expand on things I have learned in book one.

Thanks again for the advise

John

[SpeedisaVirus]

It's definitely a challenge to get back into a school setting after a long break. I took six years after high school before I started again. Good luck.

[jjl]

Quote

As for taking notes, DO NOT write down everything the professor says, but merely just jot down notes on things you think are important, might be on the test, or that you might forget. That's why they call it notes and not course text. lol. Your notes should just be a paraphrasing of the course. Unless of course it's a math class, then you wanna write everything down lol. They should probably look like a bulleted list in a way that they're not quite complete sentences unless they're important, a quote, or you feel they need to be.

this may seem weird, but i actually dont write down any notes. I take pictures of the board so i can follow along through derivations and explanations

[NeoTifa]

That is weird, but hey, whatever floats your boat.