Getting To Know Note-Taking Superstar, Samuel Suresh

We sat down with the uni student, YouTuber, and full-time inspirational human.

You’d probably be surprised to hear that the part of school Samuel Suresh disliked the most, was studying.

It seems misplaced for the fifth-year Western Sydney University science and business student, who’s made a name for himself on YouTube.

His inspiring content is centred around colourful and creative note-taking on iPad with Apple Pencil, for students – all based on his own experiences.

Which, again, seems mismatched for someone who never used to think of themselves as particularly artistic.

But, it’s all true, and it’s all worked. His YouTube has 291k subscribers and over a whopping 13 million views.

Samuel’s on the judging panel for Student Edge’s iPad challenge, so we sat down with him for some inspo, and to get to know him a bit better (and of course, we threw in some cheeky tips for entering, too).

How Samuel’s digital note-taking journey began.

Have you ever tried super hard to make your notes ‘pretty’ and it just didn’t work? Well, that’s what happened to Samuel. He’d find himself halfway through writing a page of notes, having forgotten a chunk of information.

He loved the process of putting assignments together at school, but when it came to studying and note-taking on paper, he felt “inefficient, and my tools were so limiting.”

“When I came to university and I discovered what the iPad was capable of… that just blew my mind and opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities,” he says.

And it’s what enabled him to realise that his experience resonated with people around the world.

Cue his YouTube channel.

“I'm not the only person who feels limited by this idea of education,” he says.

“I'm just grateful to the fact that I'm able to take experiences and struggles I've been through and share my insights to students who may be going through the same thing as well.”

Samuel lives by three words: Own your learning.

Samuel’s learning philosophy, ‘Own Your Learning’, came from a professor who really inspired him.

It’s essentially a call to students to not wait and be told what to do and not just buy into a transactional model of learning where memorising things happens in exchange for marks.

“It's more about you asking yourself—'who's the person I want to be, what are the skills I want to develop?’ And when you get opportunities to learn, take the knowledge and make it your own,” he says.

“One of the ways to do that is by making notes.”

Anyone has what it takes to be a note-taker on iPad.

Yup, even if you think you’re no good at drawing. Samuel didn’t think he was either.

Discovering the iPad was a light-bulb moment for him, and he pins it all down to the humble “undo” button.

“The power of the fact that now you're allowed to make mistakes, it really encourages you to try things you haven't tried before, and that’s what a lot of us need” he says.

“I definitely believe that anyone who wants to be this type of person – a creative who thinks for themselves – can benefit from the iPad.”

He’s got three tips for anyone thinking of entering the iPad Challenge.

1. They don’t need to be perfect insta-worthy notes.

“What we're looking for is something that takes the potential of the iPad and creates something that, when we look at the notes, we're like ‘oh, that's, that's not possible with pen and paper’.”

2. So, create notes that just aren't possible with pen and paper.

“Whether that's taking an image and annotating it, or taking photos from your holiday to the Philippines and then creating a collage…”

3. It doesn't have to be a study note.

“You can follow one of our themes, you could do a journal entry, you could maybe show some of your thinking process… it doesn't matter what it is.”

So, what are you waiting for? Show us, and Samuel, what your notes are made of, and check out the iPad challenge here!

Header image: Samuel Suresh via YouTube