Gah. I keep looking at mine. I spent hours writing notes (otherwise known as copying notes in lectures and promptly ignoring them despite impending exams) and I have at least 20 folders of stuff (I daren't count).
This appears to be my stumbling block. I can't quite convince myself I don't need them. The information is probably available on the internet or I could buy a book.
Maybe next time I move......
do you need them for your work?
do you need them for anything else?
did you pass the exams already? are you done with that study?
Recycle them- if you have to question it, you don't need 'em.
Set yourself free....let them go!
If you have access to a scanner that will load up multiple sheets at once, you could scan them in. It's very quick and you'd have them all just in case. You probably won't need them, but you never know - I work in science and I have sometimes wished I'd kept my notes. I recently changed jobs, and I wish I had my old analytical chemistry notes, which were very extensive and much better organized than most textbooks on the subject.
How old are these notes?
If they are recent (within the last few years) and relevant to what you do, keep them. Or sort and keep the ones that pertain to your job and toss the rest.
If they are not recent, scan the ones you might need and recycle the remainder.
Let us know what you end up doing!
I teach science so they could be relevant to my work, but at a higher level.
I can't face scanning them in - I'd be there for weeks
They are badly organised.
I finished that degree in 2002.
They should go in the recyc shouldn't they.
Right, decision made!
Thanks guys
I agree with your decision, badkitti,
I've been teaching science for 22 years now and the notes I took for college courses have proved to be useless. Textbooks, slightly more helpful but the information is available on the Internet in updated and in interesting formats.
Really, the science curriculum materials at grade level are so stuffed with content that we need to declutter them as well.
More than once I have had a major purging of materials, or scanned and purged them. Those saved scans NEVER get accessed. Save youself the time!
congrats on your decision!
just reading about is giving me the courage to go through stuff a bit more ruthlessly.
I still have uni notes from my engineering degree that I did from 1991 to 1996 (yes, I spent too long in the refec playing cards but I have a lot of those refec friends for life) plus a few other subjects I've done as PD or for my own interest. They are stored in four plastic crates with lids so the only vermin to attack them would be prepacked silverfish. The crates are now in my lawn locker.
I will consider scanning them when I have "time" (I can hear the howls of laughter now). I like to know they are still there as I change jobs every two or three years and sometimes end up in a field that's out of my speciality (but still within the scope of my degree). It's a psychological comfort thing.
Even scanning the materials begins the process of deciding what to keep. It takes time to scan and you start making decisions on what is even "scan-worthy".
@badkitti If you can get the information somewhere else and don't really need the notes, recycling is great.
My husband used my notes to study for his qualifying exam and continues to use them occasionally to teach his classes which is kind of embarrassing since I wasn't the greatest note taker, so I really wish I had recycled them, too!
I actually just ended up dealing with this myself. I had boxes of notes and sketches (I'm an industrial designer) cluttering up my basement for the last 6 years that I just had to do something about. Unlike the original poster's, they were very well organized, for the most part at least.
I was able pare the original six boxes down to less than two using simple criteria such as: (1) is it remotely useful information, (2) is it something that can't easily be found on the internet or in a book I have, (3) is the information easily accessible -- for example, homework sets, labs, and exams usually don't meet this requirement. I kept most of my sketches.
I still didn't want to keep the two boxes, though. In addition to taking up space, they can't be searched and I have to go down to the basement to find anything in them. Scanning is the perfect solution, but unless you have a commercial-quality, high-speed scanner, it's really not worth the time and trouble to do it yourself. So I sent my boxes in to Pixily using their bulk scanning service. They pay for shipping (both ways) and secure shredding if you want. Their rate isn't that cheap, but they did a very nice job and returned high-quality, searchable OCR'd PDFs of everything, properly grouped and labeled based on the file folders I sent in.
In all, it cost a few hundred bucks, which I'm sure many of you are thinking is just plain silly. If so, you should dump your notes in the recycle bin right now (if you still have them). The way I see it, I will refer back to some of this information, and paying to have it scanned actually made the information more accessible, thus it's more likely that I'll actually use it. I could have kept saying that I would do it myself, but the reality is that I wouldn't have taken the time and ultimately I'm glad I didn't waste my time scanning thousands of pages of old notes anyway. My 4-year college education cost a whole lot more than a few hundred dollars, so this was a pretty tiny investment to preserve some of that valuable information.
I have a social work degree, and took extra classes in child development, psych, etc. Most of my notes are still useful because a lot of that information stays very constant. I haven't organized all of my stuff yet, but I have plans to sort through and probably re-type handwritten notes so they're searchable and legible. I know it'll take a lot of time, but I'm an information "packrat" (ie, I LOVE learning), so it's important to me. Plus, going back through all of it will help me re-learn what I haven't actively been using, making me a better case manager. I'm also fond of doing mundane tasks while I watch a movie, so I'll be using Netflix for sure ...
I have notes from 4 different curricula of university - ranging from 1993 to 2006 - I saved a lot of my notes from various degree programs. I don't think I'm lying when I say that I have NEVER accessed any of these notes since completing each degree (I might have accessed notes from chemistry I when taking chemistry II, etc, but that's about it). Like some others here I've been hanging on to them because...maybe I'll use them. I think it's time to throw them out now.
A related question: Should I still keep my late husband's university notes to pass on to our 7 y/o son or just chuck them too (so he won't be burdened by note clutter later)?
Aslaug - is there a seminal essay or dissertation that your late husband wrote - or a page with characteristic doodles etc that you could save to represent university for your son?
Mine are also from 4 different curricular - I kept some of the thesis and masters' stuff so about two folders once pared down.
I should probably charity shop some of my textbooks as well, but that would be a stap too far!
Yeah, I think I have both his PhD dissertation and MSc thesis. Of course, those aren't in his handwriting. There is a set of flash cards that he wrote all kinds of organic chem reactions on and alphabetized (the man was obsessively organized ;) ) that I decided to keep.
Do y'all think I'm not such a terrible person if I chuck the rest?
i think it will be fine if you chuck the rest.
really, i do.
your son will more than likely wind up in a different field altogether.
anyway....note taking is part of learning.
if someone just handed us the notes then none of us would do any work!
My hoarder father has kept his uni notes (electrical engineering) from the 50s, 60s and 70s. He doesn't refer to them but he's not prepared to part with them. None of us want them. Not even I want them and I did related study (civil engineering).
Do yourself and your son a favour - ditch them now! Sure keep the flash cards for sentiment but don't burden your own life or your son's future life (visions of a son feeling like he's obliged to study in the same field) by keeping the rest.
I chucked my notes about 10 years ago. I have never once thought about them, until I saw this thread. So there's my .02
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