2 February 2026 | Written by Anya Phillips
How to activate your premium plan using a .edu email:
Make your account here, using your Harvard email: https://www.notion.com/?indexHtmlPath=index-web-en-US-8038278762765b45d
once you’ve logged in (and maybe even installed the desktop app), click your name in the top left, click settings, click “Upgrade Plan.” You should be able to get the education plan this way.
🎉 Congratulations! You’re the owner of a Notion account! This is how we’ll do homework this semester, but Notion is a great tool in other contexts as well. I use it daily to keep a detailed and (mostly) organized research journal.
^ proof that my professional life is 100% organized in Notion. Nested pages all the way down…
For the most part, writing your blog posts will be pretty straightforward and similar to typing in familiar text editors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs (so like ctrl+z, ctrl+a, ctrl+b, etc etc; syntax from the Markdown language also tends to work in Notion, if you’re familiar with that).
A huge advantage of Notion is being able to easily write specialized cells (or “blocks”) to communicate your ideas most clearly. To create these, begin with a forward slash / e.g., “/code” or “/equation.” Just typing the slash will bring up a menu of possible commands to choose from (you can hit esc to dismiss the autocomplete).
To make the code block below, I typed “/code”+Enter:
# your first python fact:
# python will not run text after a pound sign, aka "comments"
# the drop-down menu in the top right lets you select a language so that...
phrase = "your code will be colored to make it easier to read!"
print(phrase)
# ... unf notion will not actually run your code :)
# but if you make a plot or do a calculation with code
# it is nice to include that code in your blog post anyway
# we'll go over some Python basics in TALC next week.
Equation blocks use code written in the LaTeX* language to nicely render mathematical equations.
For example:
*pronounced “lay-tek” (typical for average grad students) or “lah-tek” (typical for age ~65+ professors) but definitely not “lay-teks” for some reason….
$$ U = -\frac{GMm}{r} \\ F = \frac{G Mm}{r^2}\\ M = 1~M_{\odot} \\ m = 1~M_{\oplus} \\ r=1~\text{AU} \\ 1~\mathrm{AU} \approx 1.5\times10^{13}~\mathrm{cm} \\ y'(x) = \frac{dy}{dx} \\ r(t_1) = \int_{0}^{t_1} v(t)~ dt \\ L_* \propto R_*^2 T_{\rm eff}^4 $$
^ insert line breaks using \\