Help with taking notes.

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I have, for several reasons, got a really hard time focusing in class/lectures which makes studying extremely difficult. Since I don't have any official diagnoses yet I can't really get any official help with my studies. But at my uni they've understood I've got certain issues so they've offered me "unofficial" help with taking notes in class/lectures. That way I don't have to try to listen and take notes at the same time. Instead I can just focus on what's being said (or at least try doing so). Just wondering if any of you have had help with taking notes? If so, did/do you find it helpful?

I was good at taking notes so I didn't need help, but lots of people brough a tape recorder to class. Thats a good idea if your school will allow it.

There are two girls in my daughter's college class that can't take notes. One is deaf and can't look down to write and read lips at the same time and the other has arthritis. Somehow or other through the school they offered $50 to take notes for them in that class the whole semester. My daughter is giving a copy of her notes to each of them, so thats $100 at the end of the semester. The school gives her a check, so I don't know if it's through a program or how it's done. I do know that I wouldn't be able to use someone else's notes, they would comfuse me.

I'd really suggest a tape recorder, but if you can't do that then offer to pay someone to copy their notes after each class.

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Hi - life-long academic here, never could take notes worth a bean. The offer of note help sounds good, more than I ever had. Probldem is - for me at least - the notes that a note taker takes do not match my mind's structure. They would not help - if they fitted my brain, I could take notes.

Throughout education and beyond, I had to pay attention - notes were doodles, irrelevant ideas for research, occasionally an important quote from the lecture. Rarely much use in review - I survived by listerning and building my own inforation structure.

I have had this same problem; I am easily distracted. I can empathize and see where you are getting at with this. What could I possibly do, too?

I recommend a LightScribe EchoPen. I use one at work for meetings and it works great and is less obvious then using a tape recorder or iPod or similar. It also links the audio directly to the notes which makes finding the audio a snap. In my case my work paid for it as part of our work place accommodation program.

Unfortunately I'm not allowed to record lectures etc. It might be possible when you have an official diagnosis, but I don't have one. Anyway, I think I'm going to accept the offer and get some help with note-taking.

I've got another question. It's actually not about notes but it's still about coping with Uni. I had my first exam today and something happened when I sat there. When people were done and went to hand in their test they passed me all the time and they didn't do so as quietly as I would've liked. So people were quite noisy (moving chairs, walking, talking a little etc) and it really bothered me even though I was using earplugs. Anyway, I got really agitated and annoyed, started shaking, my heart started beating fast and my ears got warm. What was that? Sensory overload? Some sort of anxiety attack? I don't understand why it bothered me when it didn't bother other people.

EDIT: Also, I think I might've come across as a bit rude or something when I handed in my test because I just wanted it to be over so I could get out and breathe some fresh air. Now I feel bad about it. Should I feel bad about it?

Take amphetamines.

edit: Get diagnosed, ask for a note taker.

I have always had a hard time with taking note. The teacher has to write everything on the board he wants us to copy down. That is the only way I can take notes. I have known NTs who had a hard time with note taking too. I knew one girl in my high school who couldn't take them because she misses what the teacher says when she writes stuff down. My aid said when she was in college, students had to buy notes. I have never seen anyone use a tape recorder. This seems more like a personal thing than with disability but it can be disability related.

I cannot listen and write at the same time. Hearing/absorbing and writing are two mutually exclusive events for me. I have a note-taker at university that does good notes though.

I suse Im in the rare minority? I HAD to take notes of everything obsessively because I didn't understand the spoken lecture, I only understood the material through the written notes (does that make sense, not sure if I'm saying it right).

If I didn't write it, I didnt understand it.

If I had a professor with a thick accent that was hard to understand, garunteed I'd fail the class. Also the more they wrote on the board/overhead projector (I feel old now) the better off I was.

You could speak to your professor personally, explain the situation, about what you think you probably have and about why you can't just get diagnosed in a single afternoon. Most professors are pretty reasonable, I find. If they're not, well, I can't stand jerks, so I'd choose a different section with a teacher who wasn't an ass.

So you live in a country without any kind of private healthcare? Can you hop on a plane, get diagnosed in say, England, where you can just hire a psychiatrist, and bring back a piece of paper that says so and take it to the appropriate beureacrats at your university?