College 101: Ten Apps for College
Happy Wednesday and welcome to the second post in my College 101 series. Enjoy!
Photo via flickr
I’m going to be completely honest with you that my phone is everything. I’ve heard people ask the question of whether you’d rather live without your phone or your computer, well… I’d rather live without my laptop because during school most of my homework is still paper and pencil. If I need to reference an equation or a PDF I’ll pull out my phone rather than open up my laptop, log-in, and search. Over the past three years, I’ve found some apps that have been pretty helpful for school whether that is graphing an equation or getting quality sleep. Here are my top ten apps for utilizing your phone for college!
1. Quizlet
Quizlet is a flashcard app that allows you to create your own deck or even reference decks in a specific topic that were made by others. I started using this app in high school for memorizing vocabulary words, but found myself using it to memorize equations too! This app helped immensely when studying terms for my business classes because I was able to search my textbook on quizlet and found pre-made cards for each chapter of the text. There is a premium version of the app, but I found that the free version does just fine for basic flashcards.
2. Google Suite (Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides)
The Google Suite is absolutely necessary, especially if your school is linked with Gmail. These are probably my most used apps during the school year. I use Drive to collaborate with other students on projects or presentation, as well as, storing a lot of my school documents. It’s great because it automatically saves and you can access the updated version on any device. My school using moodle and allows for me to upload any electronic homework through google drive. You’ll need Docs, Sheets, and Slides to reference the material held in Google Drive due to the way the suite is set up.
3. Dropbox
Dropbox is another great way to store all your files in one place, while having the ability to share files and folders with anyone. You get 2 GB for free and then you can upgrade for $9.99 a month. I would highly recommend keeping a digital copy of all papers and projects in one other place besides your computer. The app is as seamless as the service. I highly recommend this one and the upgraded version.
4. DocScan
DocScan has been a lifesaver over the past three years. It’s basically a portable scanner. I have an actual scanner built into my printer, but since getting it freshman year I don’t think I’ve even touched it. I’ve used it to scan my homework when I was out sick and couldn’t turn it in or scanning signed documents to companies. I originally used CamScanner, but my boyfriend used this one and I like how it saves the documents a lot better and it’s ease in emailing the scanned documents.
5. Desmos
My freshmen year roommate actually told me about this app when we were doing our calculus homework together! Desmos is a graphing app that you can also access online at their website, but it’s great because you just type in the equation you’re trying to graph and it does all the work for you, as well as, give you specific coordinates. You can also graph more than one equation and find the intersection. This app is great for surviving calculus homework because you can check your graphs against the ones generated for you.
6. Chegg
Another app that helps with your homework. Chegg seems pretty controversial to some students because many consider it cheating, but it’s all how you use it. Chegg gives step-by-step solutions to textbook problems so you could essentially copy the solution right from the website, but what you should do is use it as a checking tool similar to Desmos. Check your answers against it or even look up a similar textbook problems to learn how to do certain types of questions. Chegg is about $15/month, but I learn really well from looking at solutions so I find this service well worth it.
7. LinkedIn
It’s so important to stay on top of your network in college because it’s all about who you know, which is why LinkedIn is on my top ten apps for college list. LinkedIn is basically Facebook, but for professional networking. Keep this app on your phone to connect with everyone you meet whether it’s a student, professor (if allowed), or your boss from your summer internship.
8. SleepCycle Alarm
The SleepCycle app is a paid app, but was also well worth the $3 or so because it uses the accelerator in your phone to track what type of sleep you’re in like REM or light sleep, etc. and wake you up at just the right time to feel less tired. It gives you a 15 minute range with the latest time being the alarm time you set. Trust me this is the best thing to happen to college students since Chegg haha!
9. Venmo
Venmo is a must! It’s an app that allows you to send money to friends for splitting that late night pizza you probably shouldn’t have eaten or the supplies for an ABC party. It’s really simple to set up and when it’s all set up you can pay people or request money from them. I mainly using it to split utility bills and dinner with friends! It’s great not having to carry cash around or owing someone a dinner.
10. Mint
Lastly, Mint is a great app for budgeting. It allows you to sync all your bank accounts and credit cards in one place. It also breaks down your spending into categories so you know when you spent a little too much at the bars or on those shoes for formal. This app helps keep me accountable for my spending and I love the visual breakdowns. Graphs are kinda my thing… I’m an engineer at heart!
Let me know what apps you can’t live without in the comments!
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