Joan Baker

Oh sure and because nothing says 'great idea' like throwing away two years of your life on a major you hate, right? I've seen guys in IT pull this stunt all the time, thinking they're hotshots until the credit transfers hit like a brick wall. You end up begging advisors for mercy, and half your classes don't count, so you're stuck retaking basics while your friends graduate and get real jobs. Picture this: one dude I knew switched from comp sci to business in junior year, figured it'd be easy. Nope, lost a ton of tech credits, had to overload semesters, and graduated a year late with a mountain of debt. Moral? Talk to an advisor yesterday, map out every single credit, or prepare to eat ramen for an extra semester. And don't get me started on the timing – if you're not careful, you'll miss prerequisites and drag it out even longer. Yeah, it's doable, but it's a pain. Weigh if that new major is worth the hassle, or if you're just burnt out on the old one.

Hey Cooper, i switched from paper notes to an iPad about two years ago for my college classes & and overall, it was a game-changer for me. My paper notes were always a mess too, scattered everywhere, but with the tablet, I use the GoodNotes app to organize everything into digital notebooks by subject. Searching for specific terms is super easy, like when I needed to find my notes on quantum mechanics last semester, I just typed it in and bam, there it was. Reviewing became something I actually do now because I can annotate PDFs of textbooks right on the device, which made studying for exams way less painful. The handwriting feels natural with the Apple Pencil, and I don't lose pages anymore. That said, distractions are real, especially if you don't turn off notifications. I got sidetracked a few times by Reddit alerts during lectures, so I had to set it to Do Not Disturb mode every class. Cost-wise, it wasn't cheap. I spent around $800 on the iPad and accessories, but it replaced buying notebooks and printers over time. Charging is another hassle, I forgot to plug it in once and had to borrow a friend's notebook mid-lecture, which was embarrassing. In your case, since you rarely review notes, the tablet might motivate you to organize and revisit them more, but if chaos isn't bothering you much, it could just be an unnecessary gadget. I think it's worth it if you're willing to tweak settings to minimize distractions. For me, the pros outweigh the cons, especially for long-term use.

The biggest shift is to stop rereading and start retrieving. Before you read, scan the headings, bold terms, figures, and any learning objectives, then turn those into questions you want to answer. Read a section with those questions in mind, close the book, and explain the key ideas out loud or on paper as if teaching a friend. Do a quick blurt at the end of the chapter where you write everything you remember for five to ten minutes, then check the book and fill the gaps in a different color. Lock it in with spaced repetition. Make short flashcards right after you study using cloze deletions and clear Q and A that force you to recall, not recognize. In Anki, use one deck per course, tag cards by chapter, keep each card to one fact or step, and use learning steps like 10 minutes, 1 day, and 3 days with daily reviews. For diagrams and processes, make cards that prompt you to draw or list steps from memory, then check against the book. Mix in questions from older chapters so you interleave topics instead of cramming one block. Keep the rest light and consistent. At the end of each subsection, write a one sentence gist in the margin and sketch a tiny diagram if it helps. Only highlight after a recall pass and cap it to one line per page so you are choosing the core idea. The next morning, do a five minute closed book recall of the chapter, then a longer check on the weekend, and if a chapter is dense, split it over two or three days with a quick test between chunks.

Two classes max, same nights, automate bills, Sunday reset, done.