Cornell Notes Mastery

Cherry Wilkins is a study skills educator and academic success coach who has spent more than fifteen years helping college students learn how to learn. She has worked as a learning specialist at university academic support centers, where she designed workshops and coaching programs in note-taking, time management, exam preparation, and reading comprehension — and where she watched hundreds of students transform their grades with what she calls "the most low-tech, high-impact skill on campus": deliberate, structured note-taking.

Her teaching draws on research in cognitive psychology, especially the science of retrieval practice, spaced repetition, and self-explanation, which she translates into practical routines that work in real classrooms. She has trained peer academic coaches, led summer bridge programs for first-generation students, and worked with student athletes navigating demanding schedules. Cherry holds a graduate degree in education and writes regularly about study strategies for college students and the educators who support them.

*Cornell Notes Mastery* is her first book. It grew out of a note-taking workshop she has taught to thousands of students — a workshop whose most common piece of feedback was simply, "Why did no one teach me this before?" A lifelong notebook enthusiast, she still takes Cornell notes at every conference, webinar, and team meeting she attends, a habit she recommends to anyone who claims to think best on paper. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family and a collection of fountain pens that she insists is, at any given moment, "almost complete."