Category: Student Posts

I love watching movies, still it was impossible for me to think of an iconic movie scene to recreate from Hollywood. When it came to Bollywood, however, it took me less than 2 seconds to think of this scene from the 20-year old film Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, which in many ways, defines Bollywood– the drama, the slow motion shots, the music, and the over-the-top visuals. Of course this video is technically catastrophic, and the only thing it does perfectly is embarrass me. I am pretty proud of it nevertheless. (Also shoutout to my aunt for singing the background music for me!)

I chose a scene from Mean Girls as my iconic movie scene. Here is the original.

First and foremost, I learned that I am a terrible artist. The only reason why each doodle is even recognizable to the eye is due to the fact that each doodle was drawn extremely slowly and meticulously. However, I also learned couple positive things from the doodling process. As I was rewatching my Econ 101 lecture about the labor market, I found that doodling helped me retain what I was learning. When you write/take notes, you remember what you’re hearing because the physical motion of writing helps you process and retain the information. When I was doodling pictures along with the written notes, I felt like it helped me even more with retaining the information because, I think, psychologically, I was associating the information with the doodles. I also found doodling to be quite therapeutic. There is something quite soothing about just moving your drawing pen on the paper and contemplating what to draw next. The only downfall for doodling notes was that it took a long time for me to draw everything, but I think it’s because I suck at drawing. For that reason, I don’t think doodling notes is a very practical way of taking notes.

Find the blog post assignment here

I learned that it was really fun and entertaining to do a creative notes. This page of notes above is way more appealing to the normal notes that I do. And now looking back, there were some occasions when I got really frustrated taking notes. I think doing visual notes like this can balance my emotions because it alleviates some of my stress.

I’ve found that drawing cute little images make me happy and positive. I’ve never imagined incorporating my own drawings into my notes; however, now I find it enjoyable to create some images in my notes, just for the sake of adding some colors and special elements. Or else notes are simply tedious. Check out the original sources and instructions about this visual notes post here.

The visual approach of taking notes is a completely different experience. In my visual notes, I included a Pie chart to illustrate how small the inventory is compare to Apple’s assets. The line of logic is distributed very clearly with a visual note. More importantly it is more interesting and made taking visual notes more easier to take.

I don’t really think of myself as an abstract person, so it was hard for me to really write notes down as pictures. I mostly put down how I felt during class and tried to include pictures of some of the things we learned. I slept really late on Sunday, so waking up early in the morning for chemistry class was not fun. I included a picture of me in a chair, with a speech bubble indicating that I was sleeping. I did not really sleep through class, but my attention span was not my usual self. I am looking at a large computer screen, symbolizing my tired vision. The chemistry I was learning as well as my textbooks were floating in the air moving upwards, leaving my mind. I drew a spilled chemical on my computer to represent my mind not being able to hold the information anymore. I also drew my breakfast on the side because it was on my mind during class. In conclusion, chemistry is not fun when you are half asleep.