voice recorder

[brightandfuzzy]

I was looking at voice recorders and was wondering how you all felt about them. Which ones work best? Should I get one that works with my ipod? Are they beneficial in lectures? How do your profs feel about them?

Thanks.

[xferlawstudent]

If you are using it to record a lecture, don't.  The vast majority of things said in the lecture will be utterly irrelevent.  It would be an enormous waste of time to re-listen to all the lectures again.

[LVP]

I agree with that.  The time you would spend relistening to the lecture would be much better spent reading your notes from the lecture, retyping the notes from the lecture, outlining the class, reading the E&E, discussing the lecture with your study group, etc., etc., etc.

Also, you absolutely have to get your prof's permission before you record, and if your profs are like my profs, most of them will not give you permission unless you have a very good reason.  So, it's probably not an option anyway.

[Dwigt]

I'd tend to agree that they're probably a waste of time.  In a one hour class, there may only be 10-15 minutes of relevant material.  Going back to listen to every class would eat up a lot of time you could spend much more productively.  A guy in front of me used one (w/o professor's permission) but never took any class notes.  I don't get it.  Why would you sit in class and do nothing but record the lecture so you could listen to it again in your "spare" time?

I suppose the argument in favor of using one would be that there may be a subject you don't understand that the professor may address in class.  Two arguments against this - first, even if the professor addresses it in class, listening to the discussion again may not help you because class discussion is often more confusing than beneficial and second, even if the discussion would help you, you'd have to spend so much time finding it (or indexing your lectures on digital format) that it wouldn't be worth the time you spend.  In my experience, my time was best spent reviewing my notes, preparing outlines, and working practice problems/E&E's with the study group. 

[ANBUDOM]

I was looking at voice recorders and was wondering how you all felt about them. Which ones work best? Should I get one that works with my ipod? Are they beneficial in lectures? How do your profs feel about them?

Thanks.

you might wanna check with your professor before you bring a tape recorder.  certain professors do NOT like to have their lectures recorded but most probably wouldn't care. 

[BeachBum]

I recorded every lecture of my first year and only relistened to parts of a couple of lecutres.  I mostly provided copies to people who had missed class.  It was nice to have them to clarify my notes, but I never re-listened to the full lecutre. One guy would re-listen to lectures while he was exercising.  If you get a recorder, get a digital one and save the files in the best quality, usually WAV.