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Always take notes by hand! It’s okay to type them up later, but don’t just sit there and type a lecture word-for-word…your brain focuses on typing instead of “learning” or analyzing what is being said.

Also, learn to academically read. Basically, read the intro chapter. Then read first and last paragraph in following chapters. Lastly, any summaries/conclusions. Note what’s discussed and where. You generally want to get the main ideas and where to locate the details when you need them. This technique can work for individual chapters, papers, or even while texts. You’ll get a feel for it. The key is if you have the time, feel free to read it all. Else, it’s about learning how to find the info you need when you need it. I had one class that required 30 books. The assignments covered 3-5 books at a time. It was unmanageable, along with other classes, if you didn’t follow the above flow. That ended up being the “point” of the class. Oh, depending on the book, I adapt this technique to read the first and last sentence of each paragraph. That works well too.