That's a great approach if you have a good memory. If you don't, not so much.
When I was younger, I used to never take notes and remembered almost everything. I never had a photographic memory, but certainly remembered enough to understand and do very well on tests.
As I got older, doing that became harder and harder, so I started relying on notes. My note-taking skills went from pretty poor to really good, and now I feel crippled if I can't take notes. This is especially true when the course-load is high, and you're expected to remember a ton of material per course. Relying exclusively on your memory for something like that is only effective for a certain fortunate segment of the population.
Notes are also great for review years or even decades later, when the things you may have remembered at the time are long forgotten. They're also great for sharing with friends and publishing, like Sacha Chua[1][2] does with her notes.
When I was younger, I used to never take notes and remembered almost everything. I never had a photographic memory, but certainly remembered enough to understand and do very well on tests.
As I got older, doing that became harder and harder, so I started relying on notes. My note-taking skills went from pretty poor to really good, and now I feel crippled if I can't take notes. This is especially true when the course-load is high, and you're expected to remember a ton of material per course. Relying exclusively on your memory for something like that is only effective for a certain fortunate segment of the population.
Notes are also great for review years or even decades later, when the things you may have remembered at the time are long forgotten. They're also great for sharing with friends and publishing, like Sacha Chua[1][2] does with her notes.
[1] - http://sachachua.com/blog/2013/05/how-to-learn-emacs-a-hand-...
[2] - http://sachachua.com/blog/sketched-books/