With the new school year just around the corner, it might be time to start thinking about how you can supercharge your studies over the months ahead. Fortunately, there is an incredible array of student-oriented apps out there that are ready to give you all the help and support you need. Read on for a round-up of eight of the best.
Exam Countdown Lite
Does your calculus exam come before your chemistry exam, or is it the other way around? Do you need to start studying for your biology midterm today, or should you focus on your literature paper? Exam Countdown Lite helps you prioritize your study and preparation time by attaching a helpful countdown clock to each of your upcoming exams. The simple interface makes it easy to see how much time you have left before each exam, right down to the minute, and you can customize each subject with its own icons and colors.
Evernote
There’s a reason why Evernote is consistently rated as one of the best organizational apps: it offers a comprehensive, easy-to-use way to make lists, take notes, monitor tasks, and generally stay on top of the million things you have going on as a student. The app supports a wide variety of file formats—including text, PDFs, photos, audio, video, sketches, and more—and allows you to sync all content across multiple devices, so you’ll always have access to your most urgent to-do items. You can also share content with other Evernote users, which makes it a breeze to collaborate with research partners or study groups.
Office Lens
There isn’t always enough time to copy down all the notes or calculations that your teacher writes on the whiteboard during class. But Office Lens offers an easier way to save this material for reference. Simply snap a picture of the whiteboard, and Office Lens will clean up the image and convert it into text that can be easily edited or shared. Even if you take pictures on an angle, the app can adjust the perspective and fix glare and shadows that might be obscuring crucial information. You can save images in a variety of formats, including PDFs, Word documents, or PowerPoint files.
Free Graphing Calculator
Math students take note: If you have the Free Graphing Calculator app, you’ll never need a separate graphing calculator again. Free Graphing Calculator delivers the superior functionality you’d expect from a quality graphing calculator—including the ability to graph up to four equations simultaneously and to create a table from entered values—all in a simple, user-friendly interface.
EasyBib
Whatever subject you study, from politics to psychology, if you write essays, you’ll be familiar with the tedious task of creating a proper bibliography. Fortunately, EasyBib is there to make the job much simpler. All you need to do is enter the title of the book or publication you used as a reference (or even just scan the book’s barcode!), and the app will automatically generate a correctly formatted citation for your bibliography: you can choose from a huge range of styles, including MLA, APA, or Chicago formats. Then, all you need to do is copy the citation into your paper.
Goodbudget
Understanding how to manage your money properly is absolutely essential when you’re a college student. If you’re new to keeping track of money, the Goodbudget app is one of the most effective ways to learn the basics of budgeting. Goodbudget divides your available funds into different categories—like groceries, entertainment, and transportation—and helps you keep an eye on which categories still have money available and which categories are starting to run low. The free version of the app lets you create 10 categories each for regular and annual use and sync your information across two devices.
Chegg
As any college student knows, buying textbooks can be surprisingly expensive, and all too often, you never use those pricey books again after your class has finished. But why buy when you can rent? Chegg is a new app that lets you find rentals of the textbooks you need for the upcoming semester. Just search for the book in question: if it’s available, you can put in a rental order. And if you have textbooks you no longer need, you can make money by listing your books on the app.
Simplemind
If you’re someone who prefers to think things through visually rather than making lists, you’ll love Simplemind. This mind-mapping app is a great way to find out where exactly your jumbled thoughts want to lead you. The clean and uncluttered interface lets you map out your project visually—either starting from scratch or using one of the app’s pre-set layouts—and add notes to different sections as you refine your ideas. A great tool for visual thinkers and learners, Simplemind can be used for everything from brainstorming for a big research paper to planning a holiday.