Putting It All Together—Suggestions/Tips

[pws]

I've been here for a number months, and while I have a better understanding of what I need to know and do, there is still a whole lot of information that I have to look over—and I'm sure all newcomers feel similarly!  

From navigating all this information, I'm creating small systems to organize everything. I'd like to know, how do you organize all the important information that one needs while embarking on this journey? What techniques/tools/resources have you found to be particularly crucial in your understanding of all of this? Any important tips you would want to pass on to newcomers to internalize everything needed?

I'll start: create a main folder of bookmarks (not in your browser) of important links of documentation and resources. Organize them in alphabetical order, as well as in subfolders (since there will be many), and carefully rename each bookmark. Only put good and important bookmarks (use an 'inbox' to process instead).

[Ideas]

Dfrecore and others suggest using a spreadsheet, and it worked well for me. Especially if you already know how to sort them and set up your own columns (if not, good time to learn).

A calendar helped me a lot too. Even though the spreadsheet could be sorted by a date column, it helps to see it laid out week by week. Possibly with different colors for different categories, like CLEPs could be one color and TECEPs another.

[pws]

Tip #2: You'll have long lists of bookmarked threads to read, the earlier you accept this, the better.

[Merlin]

Personally, I just use several different spreadsheets, with the most important one being my degree plan. It has several tabs, one for each degree (AS and BS) and another that I use to keep track of the courses I still need to take, along with a running credit total to show how close I am to being done.

In addition to the degree plan, I also have other spreadsheets that I use to track which courses are available from different providers and how they are expected to be evaluated at my school. I used this to help plan out where I want to take each course. I also refer back to it to adjust my course as new options appear and old ones change or disappear.

When I first started, and again when I came back after a hiatus, I spent at least a month reading through the current forum posts and searching the archives for information relative to my educational goals. This was invaluable and reduced the number of questions I needed to ask while creating my own degree plan.

As for bookmarks, I also maintain a list of education bookmarks, but those are mainly for educational resources I don't want to lose track of. I haven't really bookmarked any threads. I find it easier to just do a search if I need to reference old threads.

Honestly, the best reference sources are the folks here on the forum. If you have questions that you can't find the answers to on your own, ask on the forum and we'll try to help as best we can.

Hopefully that helps. Good luck!

[mysonx3]

I have about four gajillion spreadsheets

Sent from my LM-Q610(FGN) using Tapatalk

[dfrecore]

Spreadsheets (of course), word doc of course providers with links to their websites, a folder on my desktop for any new stuff I need, and I periodically organize as needed.

[Muldoon]

Spreadsheets are awesome for this. I also save info as PDF/Word files and save them into folders sorted by school/provider, for the times I know what I need to look up but don't feel like searching through the website or my bookmarks.

I also created a school Trello board, with separate lists that are color-coded by provider, where I broke down every single individual step I need to take for each course (such as, "Get TESU pre-approval," "Register for course," "Take exam", etc.). Seeing little tasks helps it feel more manageable. Then, as I complete things, I move them into the DONE list.

[davewill]

I used Evernote. It was especially handy during my Capstone as I could write my own notes and embed complete PDF source documents. However, the free version has gotten more and more restrictive and I stopped using it.

[Merlin]

I used Evernote. It was especially handy during my Capstone as I could write my own notes and embed complete PDF source documents. However, the free version has gotten more and more restrictive and I stopped using it.

Evernote is my usual go to, but I am using OneNote to keep my capstone organized and doing the same types of things. Like you, I found Evernote too restrictive. OneNote is included in my Office 365 subscription, so I figured I might as well take advantage of it.

Speaking of office 365, if you don't have it already, and you're enrolled as a student somewhere, you can get Office 365 for free through most schools. Though it's pretty cheap even without that, particularly if you're sharing it with a family and spreading the costs. Either way, you'll want Word and Excel at least, those are quite handy with all the projects and academic writing needed in the UL courses.

[pws]

Speaking of office 365, if you don't have it already, and you're enrolled as a student somewhere, you can get Office 365 for free through most schools. Though it's pretty cheap even without that, particularly if you're sharing it with a family and spreading the costs. Either way, you'll want Word and Excel at least, those are quite handy with all the projects and academic writing needed in the UL courses.

That made me think (although not directly related to the thread topic), when studying, you can get educational pricing/student discounts for software and material. Some have this on their website, but some you need to send the company an email.