My Practical Splurge Purchase...
- Jillian River Browy
- Mar 21, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 21, 2020
I hate spending money if I can help it, but I felt this item to be a practical purchase for my up-coming time in grad school
What could it be, you wonder? Well, let me preface with a little about myself. I learn best by seeing information and then writing that information down. In high school math class my professor could explain until he was blue in the face, but once I saw it written out on the whiteboard, and wrote it out myself, that information was locked in my brain.
“At the end of the term I end up with hundreds of pieces of paper that I don't want to get rid of because of the valuable information on them, but also feel guilty for how much paper myself and my fellow students consume.”
In my time as a post-baccalaureate student I have noticed that many teachers use PowerPoint slides which they make available to student. Reading these slides in class isn't enough for my brain to process the information so I would print the slides and then write on them to solidify information being taught. It has worked wonders, but at the end of the term I end up with hundreds of pieces of paper (yes I print double sided AND print 6 slides to a page) that I don't want to get rid of because of the valuable information on them, but also feel guilty for how much paper myself and my fellow students consume.
SO, that brings me to my practical purchase for myself for grad school...
Say hello to my new little friend, the iPad Air (3rd Gen) in its not-so-native habitat
Why this splurge is practical
First off, I purchased a refurbished iPad because 1. its cheaper and I am a broke student and 2. I see it as a way to mitigate electronics ending up in a landfill. The benefit of buying refurbished from Apple is their certification and warranty on their refurbished products, and because of this I would highly recommend purchasing through Apple and not a third party, even if you could get the same item for cheaper. What is Apple's certification and warranty? Essentially Apple certifies that they have tested all refurbished products to be in "like-new" condition and performance and provides the same warranty coverage as their new products: 90 days of phone support and 1 year of coverage if anything goes wrong with your product. Additionally, you can purchase Apple Care+ which extends the warranty to three years and covers 2 accidental damage incidents (water damage, broken screen, etc). This is all pretty sweet, and just a great reason to shop refurbished if you can wait the couple months until after an item is released.
"I am particularly excited about the Apple Pencil and using it with the iPad."
Now as far as school is concerned, as I mentioned above, its necessary for me to be able to write down information for retention but I am tired of printing hundreds of pages of slides. Enter my new iPad: with this little device I can download and import my slides into programs such as Noteshelf or GoodNote and then use my finger or a stylus to hand write notes onto those slides. One advantage of this system is that this creates a searchable item where I can quickly leaf through my notes to find specific information. I am particularly excited about the Apple Pencil and using it with the iPad. Previously I had been using an Adonit stylus to write notes on my old tablet and after a few frustrating classes a gave up on it. It wasn't responsive enough, my writing looked terrible and I could hardly read it and it was just cumbersome to use. I demo'ed the Apple Pencil at the Apple Store and holy wow it is such an improvement and this is another strong reason that I went with the iPad Air over a different tablet.
I am excited to get to work using this little square friend and I plan to test out a few different note taking apps to see how I like them and which one will seem to work best with my studies. I'll write about that in the coming weeks as well as provide a review of my experience with the iPad and Apple Pencil "in the field", so to speak.
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