New Student? The tablet for you Back to school just got a lot more expensive. As a college student, you no longer just need a few notebooks and pencils. Now you have to pay for unreasonably expensive textbooks, a new (more sophisticated) wardrobe, pots and pans, rent, and what else? A laptop? A tablet? What expensive electronic device do you actually need for college? It’s a very good question. The answer? Well, it depends… When trying to decide if you need a tablet and what kind, there are a lot of things to consider. Here are a few questions to run by yourself to help you narrow down your options.
Note-Taking Preferences First, what is your favorite note-taking style? A lot of the younger generation now prefers to type out notes rather than writing them by hand with paper and pen. It’s faster, more organized, legible, and easily stored. But there are still plenty of people out there who prefer note-taking on paper. For them, writing out by hand helps with memory, and there is usually more room for creativity (arrows and underlines and doodles that help connect ideas). Of course some of the latest tablets are catching up on the freedom of creativity front using styluses that allow you to arrow, doodle, and draw however you please. Moral of the story – be true to what you prefer. Your schoolwork is most important and whichever tool will make you most effective is the one you should invest in.
What the Tablet is used for This brings us to point number two. What would you use your tablet for? Some surveys suggest that most students use their tablets mostly for accessing educational apps, note taking, web surfing, entertainment, and social networking. Do you already do all your web-access via smartphone and laptop? Will having a tablet make redundant your already-purchased expensive gadgetry? Will having all that at your fingertips distract you in class? Or will it guide your studies and enhance your learning experience? Do an honest self-evaluation and think about how you would use your tablet and if it would improve or detract from your education. Third, much of what you use your tablet for will be determined by the nature of your studies/major. Tablets are great for some disciplines, and not so necessary for others. Of course tablets can always be made useful, but fields that are more visual (art history, advertising, or certain medical specialties programs) would be greatly enhanced by tablets whereas fields like math or political science
might not need the specific capabilities of tablets quite as much. So think, is my medical specialties degree or journalism degree going to require the benefits of tablet? If yes, go for it! If you’re unsure, wait a little bit and see how things pan out. This brings us to the last tip. If you are unsure of what you need, start out with the cheap pen and paper method and later invest in the more expensive tablet once you know what your needs are really like. Take a semester and consider how and when you would want or need a tablet in each of your classes. This will help you identify specific features you want/need, which will help you choose between the many tablets out there. So remember, self-reflect, experiment, and save yourself a lot of money and frustration by picking the tablet fit for you!
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