The Unofficial Guide to First Year - University of Oklahoma Health ...

UNOFFICIAL GUIDE
CHAPTER
“That is incompatible with life.”
Dr. Bidichandani
4
Notegroups
The Notegroup system is one of the great things about med school at OU. It
is this system that ensures that if you aren’t able (or willing) to attend class you
can still get a good idea of what you missed. Notegroups are sure to become a
big part of the way you study from now on, and the majority of students find
them extremely helpful. Whether you use them as a review of the day’s
material or as the source for a night-before-test cram session, notegroups are an excellent way to get
a picture of what the professor really emphasized in class. They’re like CliffsNotes® for medical
school.
The notegroup system will seem complex at first, but once you’ve written one and uploaded it
correctly then you’ll see how simple they really are. Notegroup writing is a big responsibility!
Many students will be looking over what you have written, so make sure what you’ve written is
correct- otherwise, you may have a large block of your class blaming you for missing a test
question. Don’t shrug off the responsibility of presenting the lecture as accurately as possiblenotegroups
also help to emphasize what the professor really spent time on (ie- what’s important
for the test). Go the extra mile, your classmates will thank you. And if you can’t or don’t want
to do the job right – sell it to someone who will!
I’ll go ahead and list the top few things to remember about notegroups:
• Notegroups are due at 10:00am two days after the class. For example, if you take notes for
a class on Tuesday it is due on Thursday morning. Notegroups on Thursdays and Fridays
are both due Monday morning at 10:00am.
• You need to post a copy online at the notegroups directory, which can be reached from
Hippocrates. Don’t forget to name the file correctly! Your contribution to notegroups is
wasted if no one can find your file because you gave it a funny name.
• Always be sure to put the proper date, time and teacher on the heading or you will make
life crazy for a lot of classmates. If you don’t follow notegroup’s rules you will get fined, so
it is easier to just do it right or sell it to someone you know will.
• If something happens where you can’t complete your notegroups or did not complete them
on time (your computer crashes, you lost an arm to an alligator last weekend, you realize
you forgot to do them, etc), email your notegroups chair. It’s always better to contact your
notegroups chair before they contact you.
He listens well who takes notes.
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
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