Saving notes or not

[tayjordann]

Cleaning up my undergraduate room, I can't decide if I should save or throw out my notes from undergrad. What are some of you guys doing with your undergraduate notes? Do you think they will be beneficial in grad school?

[mandypo333]

I've heard some of your notes are really beneficial for graduate school. I've personally laminated all my notes from SLP classes and plan on keeping them for a while

[DeWi]

I have all of my relevant SLP notes organized in a binder. Definitely keeping them; you never know when you might need them! 

Edited April 12, 2016 by cosmicmorgan

[tayjordann]

Really good points! Thank you both!

[jpiccolo]

I haven't used my notes more than once if that. I have looked through a couple textbooks. But I thinking keeping them is good. You don't learn everything in grad school because of undergrad so it's good to have a resource, especially on normal development or phonetics, etc

[fuzzylogician]

If you have the time, scan your notes, keep them electronically and recycle the actual notes. I've done that for all my notes and it's made moving that much less complicated. 

[tea4me]

I'm saving everything from undergrad. If I ever need to list a noun phrase's components for language sample analysis or try to infer disorder from site of lesion, I can go back to my notes because I remember taking them and activate old pathways. Everything is cumulative. Grad school builds on undergrad, so I want to have everything with me.

[abbielizx3]

I'm a Psychopath and managed to get all my SLP notes in one 5 subject notebook over the years, I don't think I could get rid of it if I tried haha. But its super helpful if you need like a quick refresher.

[MangoSmoothie]

I have used many of my notes and textbooks from undergrad in just the first two semesters of grad school. Even if I'm not citing them in papers (which I have already done many times with my textbooks), I have gone back to refresh my knowledge and review or to find a starting point for research. Many people in my cohort have done the same or wish they could have done the same. I have even sent old powerpoint lectures from my undergrad courses to students in my grad program who went to the same undergrad program as me.

I have no idea why people sell back textbooks only because they don't think they'll be useful in this field in the future. Look at the bookshelf of any seasoned SLP and you'll find they have many of their undergrad and grad school textbooks. Even as the editions change, most of the information is not yet outdated. My current clinical supervisor just threw out textbooks from the 80s, and they were still valuable resources until very recently.

If you can save stuff, save it. Especially your first two semesters of grad school, they'll be very useful. "Reactivating old pathways" as tea4me said, is a very apt description. Everyone's experience is different, but for myself and those I know, having those materials from undergrad has been very beneficial.

Edited April 13, 2016 by MangoSmoothie

[moni28]

I'm currently in my first semester of grad school, and I've found that any undergraduate notes about standardized assessments, language development, and diagnostics have been super helpful!