Reddit mentions of Sony ICDTX50 Digital Flash Voice Recorder

It very depends on your major. I would argue that it's way easier to get a high GPA in social sciences vs. hardcore sciences/engineering.

For example, if you get a 3.9 GPA as EECS major, you're probably a genius + very hard working with no life. Same thing with MCB and others.

My recommendations:

• Prioritize slides if acceptable. Lectures would have on avg 15-25 slides. 50% of them (at least) are junk like background info and useless information. There is X amount of material that a Prof. can ask you on the exam. Stick to the big picture and grasp the idea behind important slides. I had a color scheme of slides in an excel spreadsheet. I did a column for each lecture and each row was the lecture slide. Then I just color scheme with 4 colors which slides are more important than others. I first studied just the very important slides, then the less important and I left the junk slides to the last minute, mainly when I had a very good grasp on the other slides.
  
  
• Record the lectures. Purchase a good recorder on Amazon or anywhere else and it would be your best friend. Some Professors are lecturing at 200mph, and it's impossible to take all the notes during the lecture. There would also be lecture when you are just too tired to listen, or it wouldn't be your day to take notes and grasp the material. I would recommend this very expensive one, but a very good one: https://www.amazon.com/Sony-ICDTX50-Digital-Flash-Recorder/dp/B007BD0H1G/ref=pd_sbs_229_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B007BD0H1G&pd_rd_r=NEB64ERTF3A05EH5FR60&pd_rd_w=fa4Ol&pd_rd_wg=UJru7&psc=1&refRID=NEB64ERTF3A05EH5FR60
  
  but others would work too. Some Professors had an accent and shitty recorders did a pretty bad job.
  
  
• Do and understand all the assigned problem sets. Do them again and again if you don't understand it. Ask the GSIs/Professors questions about those problem set since they are 100% going to be on the exam (or concepts from them, so understand the concept behind each problem set).
  
  
• Don't waste time reading the book. Skim the book chapters (you can get the book online as a PDF usually for free or go to the library) , read the titles, read the first and last two sentences of each paragraph, and read what each word that is in bold means. If there is a picture/diagram in the book, and it's relevant to your lecture, make sure you understand everything in it. If not, ask you GSI/Professor.
  
  
  Good luck buddy.