Pardon me for my absence for a while since for the past week I have been trying to consolidate all the Chemistry stuff I have learnt back in 2010. The huge pile of notes have been with me for like 5 years (since 2009) and I cannot bear to throw away this juicy fruit of labour that I have painstakingly used during my JC days. It was in JC when learning was away from textbooks but from lecture notes and tutorials instead. Every piece of notes that I bought (literally with money) was a gem of its own, whether it did serve me purpose or not. Given I am doing Science in university soon, I would probably need those Math and Physics notes on top of my Chemistry ones. For my economics notes, I haven't touch it at all ever since I archived it like 2 years ago. Well it does trigger much memories like those days during lecture when it was like chill and relax on our seats while listening, not to forget those interesting things my tutors have to say during tutorial, whether it was linked to studies or not it didn't matter. 

I mean, all these school notes did served its purpose of providing literal knowledge during my time in TJC, it may seem to most that it's now a piece of junk. I would see this 'junk' more of as a memento, a piece of antique that was once significant to my life. As I flipped through pages and pages of notes, I see little scribblings which I have made back then when I have like a "Eureka" moment while studying my notes. Cluttered with these scribblings were also little evidences of  'vandalism' when my friends and I used to write pretty lame stuff on each others' notes. As I read the content of the 'vandalised' paper, it triggered back memories like how it happened, who were involved, where it happened and what happened next. After that, I feel a little trickle of happiness flowing through me. Perhaps it brought back those feelings I had when I'm around my classmates or maybe I find myself stupid for doing that in the past.

I always had this belief that the best notes one could ever have are notes made by oneself. Well, the content of the notes have to come from some others sources other than the top of your head. Consolidating lecture notes, tutorial worksheets and additional points covered during lectures or tutorials would be a very good start to start off writing your own notes. As you practise more questions, the additional learning points would be worthwhile to jot down in your own notes as well. At the end of the day, these set of notes would serve as the essence of what you have learnt throughout the past year.

Here are some reasons why I advocate writing your own notes. As you jot down content from various sources, be it from lecture notes or tutorial worksheets, you tend to be able to retain the knowledge given the experience you are going through. Well, you can probably attribute it to 'muscle memory'. At the same time, there are moments when one may encounter certain similar points are found all over the different sets of notes which makes learning to go the extra mile of flipping through the tons and tons of notes. So, writing your own notes allows you to consolidate your learning and at the same time, lets you decide what you want to put into your notes, what you do not want or even prioritising what you really need to learn in a particular topic. Personally, I get put off when I see notes which are like paper-heavy. Hence, I normally like to squeeze as much content as possible into one piece of paper. If it's not worthwhile or practical to do so (when you have to read words of font size 4), I give some leeway to about 4 or 5 pieces of paper. While it be a little thicker now, but comparing to the 30 or 40 odd pages of notes that are given for one lecture topic, I would say reading through that 5 pieces of paper is more time-saving than the latter. 

Speaking about time, having consolidated notes written by myself allows me to speed up the pace of revision especially during times like days before any major exam, so I don't have to like load myself up with thick pages of notes to the exam venue before the exam starts. Plus, even if one brings all his notes to school before the exam, I doubt he would know where to start off when he does some last-minute revision before the exam. Personally, I'm a learner who likes to know the overview picture of what I am actually learning by the time lectures covered everything taught for a certain topic. As such, writing my own notes gives me a bird's eye view of all the concepts taught. Rather than plain writing the notes in prose, I prefer to write my notes in a concept map format, which suits me given the systematic nature and neat layout of the format.

There are learners who like to learn from mind maps, spider diagrams, tables or just plain texts. My recommendation is to make notes in the manner or style which suits you. Having to force yourself to make notes in a certain format which you don't like would probably not help you much since the interest of learning from it is not there in the first place. Learning only takes place when you are willing to learn. I am sure one does not want to learn things the hard way, or the way which they do not like or suits them. Only when you are comfortable will you be willing and open yourself up to go and immerse yourself in the learning. Everyone is unique and have their own learning styles. Some may not even like making notes as they think of it as a waste of time and prefer to just use the school notes instead. It's really to each his own and as long as you enjoy it, I would say you'll probably do better than before. If one method does not work, try another and see how it goes for you. At the end of the day, it's a lot about finding out how you want to study and how you would like to study. For those who have no idea what's your style of learning, you may experiment the various methods and see which suits you best. In my opinion, it's best not to force yourself to just stick to one style of notes making as it may get boring sometimes. Also, the type of subject you are studying also matters, so one style of note making is not a solution for all. (Example of science subjects versus arts subject, the way of studying is different thus probably your note-making style may be different too, so be aware of that.)

Ever since secondary school, I was exposed to the various methods of consolidating notes and the one I found useful for me was concept maps when studying the sciences. I didn't had notes for geography at all because I found the textbook more than sufficient to make any notes at all, most of it was just scribblings in the textbook. I used elementary math notes from my teacher for my exam while for additional math, I studies the little notebook which I jot down concepts during Additional Math class. Thus, the subject you're studying does matter so the studying method for each subject matters.

Before A'levels, I could not manage to finish consolidating all my Chemistry notes into concept maps since making concept maps took much time which I could not afford (that's one drawback about making notes - production takes time). I only managed to complete the organic chemistry topics. Thus, for rest of Chemistry chapters I relied on my school lecture notes instead. Eventually, all was well for me when I studied before the exam day. It was impossible to cover all the topics from A to Z the day before the exam, trust me. So the concept maps helped to speed up the learning, giving me time to revise through past exam papers.

As of yesterday, I have finally compiled all the Chemistry notes into concept maps which I can say it's the essence of my learning in Chemistry for A levels. Adding on with some other self-written and school-production notes, I believe it would serve as a great piece of revision before university starts. As for the future, I am not sure whether concept maps would be the revision method which I would employ because of the huge content I'm expecting to learn from university modules and the minimal time I have to revise and consolidate all the knowledge taught. My left hand hurts much from the small font size writing I have been using for the past week. I'm sure I'll find out for myself what works best for me when the time comes.

To learning!