r/MacUni • u/is1dro • Jun 21 '26
General Question what programs r we using for studying
yall i need some insight tf. what r we doin & using to take notes, rn we’re doing notion for planning & tracking then onenote for note taking & annotations. i wna know what would be the most practical so go off pur
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u/XtremeAAA Jun 21 '26
depends on your degree. i do software engineering so i use a mix of notion and markdown files. github to track the markdown files
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u/kavett Jun 21 '26
Hand written notes in class, if it's maths heavy or complex I'll take the first round of notes to cover the concepts & overall gyst and then rewatch the lecture the next day (no exceptions - discipline) and do the finer detailed notes with the ability to pause. If it's maths related I'll do a couple of practice questions or SGTA questions. Then do all of the rest of the SGTA questions. If there are none or it's concept related I'll do the reading & then chuck it into chat & have it quiz me. Then do some spaced repetition questions from the previous week's material to make sure I didn't forget / reinforced the connections made. For exams it's all previous exams for the last 3 years (most of my stuff is only taught once a year).
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u/_eatmypancreas Jun 21 '26
I use notebookLM, but its ai. you open a notebook and can put through up to 50 sources of honestly so many file types and u can ask it questions, ask it to make quizzes, it makes mind maps, it can create a podcast—all done with ONLY your resources. I personally put through all my lectures, extra notes, assessments, lab prac notes, and exam resources, and then ask it to do smth like answer the exam questions based off all my sources
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u/oceansRising alumni Jun 21 '26
I am now a post-grad student and notebookLM is the only AI I would ever use. It’s a great tool for revision.
I’m currently writing my thesis and I forgot to cite something (not a quote so I couldn’t just control F it) and I went through the 100+ sources I’ve used for it and couldn’t find it. I chucked the most likely culprits into Notebook and it found what I was looking for in a minute. Went to the source and independently verified. Magical tool.
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u/No-Dress3730 Jun 23 '26
how should i go about using notebook lm? do i ask it to make notes/flashcards/quizzes or just ask it to help with past papers? im super confused ive tried it like last year but never got the hang of it.
any help would be great, thanks : )
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u/_eatmypancreas Jun 23 '26
so I would open one notebook for one unit and literally upload all my lectures and additional resources + past papers. and then for me I usually just ask it to answer the qus to the past papers (like multiple choice, short & long ans) bc for some units they end up being the same.
but if u want to use it to actually study u can ask it to summarise the lectures into concise points or yea ask it to create flashcards. these are created in the studio tab on the right.
it really depends on what u think u need to study for the exams of your units. like if u notice the questions seem to repeat every year and youre fine prioritising studying those and not revising the whole unit’s content, then u can do that. but if u want to do more in depth revision then u can literally ask for notes, flashcards, quizzes, ect. be as specific as u want and ask as much as u need. it can’t outsource its responses and notes so u can trust it almost entirely.
and to add, after almost every sentence in its responses there’s a reference number which u might’ve noticed from last time. so if you’re unsure or u wanna double check where it got its info from, hover on that and it takes u to the specific source.
sorry for the long response 😭 but if u want to ask me more just dm me and I can also talk about using it for assessments or anything else!! :)
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u/No-Dress3730 Jun 27 '26
omg, thanks so much for the response like seriously. this really helps. ill def use it for next sem but over the break im gonna try and get the hang of it. does it still work for math type units? i study finance and accounting so theres a fair bit of calculations in it etc
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u/colonelcavecat Jun 21 '26
OneNote. It's free with student email and there are some great guides and templates on YouTube to refine it to something that suits you
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u/Linnkid_Chen Jun 21 '26
That mainly depends on your major. If you need a lot side note taking on slides get a cheap model of iPad might be a good option. I was a computer science student (now graduated) I would say obsidian is very worth investing your time setting up. On the other side of coin: you won’t like it unless you actually spend time setting it up and learn how to use it. One of the best thing is you can ask AI agent like codex from OpenAI or Claude code from Anthropic to help you learn and maintain the notes
If you have a lot of reading materials and memorizing need, margin note 4 is a good software to look into as well. I use it for supplement my reading on thick text books and I think it worths the non cheap price it’s charging users.
If you want to look into how to use ai to assist in your learning, NotebookLM from Google is also worth looking into
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u/No-Dress3730 Jun 23 '26
how should i go about using notebook LM if i do finance so its kinda math heavy but also theory too
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u/Linnkid_Chen Jul 05 '26
Use NotebookLM to understand concept. It has lots of features like creating mind map or slides, that helps you understand concepts and connection between them.
If you are looking for mathematical assistance, use ChatGPT or claude
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u/exuros_gg Jun 21 '26
doing double masters here, just one note for notetaking and zotero for referencing
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u/HahaWattaStoryMark Jun 22 '26
I used to write with book and pen, but since buying an iPad, I’ve been using an app called Element Note, where I use my Apple pen to take down notes now.
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u/studymaxxer Jun 21 '26
just use whatever works for you? everyone studies differently, not sure what you get out of this post
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u/is1dro Jun 21 '26
cuz i simply want to know?? be fr
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u/studymaxxer Jun 21 '26
fairs but there's not a specific app or method that's going to drastically increase ur productivity if that's what ur looking for
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u/LastSonsofKrypton Jun 21 '26
Am I the only one writing down lecture notes on pen and paper? Is this just ineffective now? Genuine question