Goodnotes
Growing up, back to school season was my favorite and YouTube was king. I would stay up late every night (against my mother’s wishes of course) leading up to the first day back watching “what’s in my backpack” and “school supply haul” videos.
My absolute favorite school supply to stock up on was notebooks. It was always such a treat when my mom would take me to Walmart on tax-free day where I would pick out the perfect notebook for each subject.
By the time senior year of high school rolled around, the thought of carrying around multiple notebooks, textbooks and my laptop was unimaginable. That’s when I discovered how perfect the Five Star 5-subject notebooks were. I was able to carry around one notebook for every class I had.
It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college, right off the precipice of the COVID-19 pandemic, that I switched over from Five Star to digital planning and note taking with Goodnotes. Using Goodnotes during the pandemic was much easier than trying to download and print every document we received. Especially since there was no way to access a public printer with the COVID cases on the rise.
The Good
- Affordability. Although Goodnotes does not require that you purchase a subscription, if you choose to do so, you don’t have to worry about crazy high monthly fees! I have the Goodnotes Essential plan which only costs $11.99 per year. P.S. That’s cheaper than buying four Five Star notebooks.
- You’ll never run out of templates. The app offers its users a marketplace where you can purchase an array of templates for your work and school needs. Whether you’re in need of a digital planner or subject specific stickers, the marketplace has everything you could want and need for digital planning and note taking. You can even upload PDFs and images. At the beginning of every semester, I upload my syllabus into Goodnotes and highlight important information so I can avoid digging through Canvas later in the year.
- Your documents are searchable. During my undergrad, I discovered that the quickest way to pass my open note quizzes was by uploading powerpoints and using the “search” feature to find the information I needed. You can even search your own handwritten notes! This saved me during winter break when I was taking Organizational Behavior and had tons of chapters and powerpoint notes to skim through.
The Bad
iCloud is the worst. I created my account/subscription five years ago using an iCloud that I don’t use anymore. With that said, I don’t have the ability to check my notes on my phone because they are on two different iCloud accounts. Use an email you’ll always have access to if you need uninterrupted access to your Goodnotes on all of your devices.
Notability
Remember that one thing that happened in 2020…? That’s right, I graduated from high school! Oh yeah, and it was in the middle of a global pandemic… But I’m not here to talk about missing out on prom (no, really, I’m not). I’m here to talk about taking notes! So what does that have to do with graduating high school during a pandemic? I’ll tell you!
Entering college in the midst of a pandemic was an odd experience, to say the least. Up until 2020, most classes were in person, a lot of assignments were on paper (like the physical kind), and the expectation was to carry a separate notebook for each class for note taking. But COVID changed everything. Nearly my entire college experience was online. From lectures, to textbooks, to assignments. With my textbooks being online, I sought out a way to take notes directly in my textbooks without having a physical copy, and that is when I found Notability!
I used Notability all through my undergrad, and now I’m using it in Graduate school! So I have spent many years and have some pros/cons for you!
The Good
- No heavy or overstuffed backpacks! I have carried all of my textbooks and notebooks with me at the same time with no problems. No back or shoulder pain or overfilled backpacks for me. Of course, that is due to the fact that Notability stores all of my notes/textbooks/other pdfs on my iPad which weighs less than a pound.
- No matter where I’m at, I have my notes! Let’s say I forget my iPad at home… no biggie. I can just open Notability on my phone or laptop and all of my notes are safe and sound and I can remain totally stress free.
3. College ruled, Cornell notes, grid, plain, or whatever mizige is… no really what is that?? No matter what type of notes I’m taking, Notability probably has the paper template for me to use. My favorite is college ruled but there’s a good chance I’m using a weekly planner template or even a bullet journaling template at times!
The Bad
- I still have ugly handwriting… You would think with a digital notebook, there’d be some kind of “beautification” it could do to my handwriting… (If you wanted to, you could type your notes instead or have it change your handwriting to be typed instead but that’s no fun.)
As you jumpstart or continue on your graduate school journey, it is important to invest in your education. So the true question now is… are you #TeamGoodnotes or #TeamNotability?