College is considered to be one of the best years of a person’s life. It is a time when people discover themselves, and figure out what they want to do with their lives. But being a college student is stressful. Scrambling to meet deadlines, pulling all-nighters to study for exams, and at the same time managing internships and keeping up with extracurriculars is usually what a typical day in the life of a college student looks like. But now, things have changed. Classes have become virtual, and this makes it even harder for a student to learn, with materials not being as easily available as they used to be, along with the many distractions that come along with attending classes at home.
So, with these things in mind, here is a list of apps that will help you get through your online classes:
- Apps for focus
- Apps fororganizing tasks
- Apps for note-taking
- Apps for learning
- Apps for easy memorization
- Apps for scanning documents
Apps for focus
1. Forest
Available on: Android and iOS.
Cost: Free
Features:
- Keeps you productive by preventing you from opening other apps on your phone.
- Open the app and set a timer to plant a seed that will keep growing as long as you don’t close the app. The moment you close it, your tree dies and you will have to start over.
- Create a room and invite other people to do it with you.
- Browser extension which can be downloaded on your PC. What makes the extension different is that you can specify the sites you want to stay away from.
- Very simple and cute interface.
- Gain coins every time your tree grows fully without interruption and use it to purchase other types of plants.
- Get an opportunity to plant a real tree after you get 2500 coins. The app works in partnership with Trees for the Future, a non-profit organization based in Maryland that works with families in sub-Saharan Africa.
- View graphs that track your weekly progress and a timeline of all the plants you grew and the ones you killed.
2. Pomodoro Timer
Available on: Android
Cost: Free
Features:
- Simple design
- Duration is adjustable.
- Set daily goals
For organizing tasks
1. Wunderlist
Available on: iOS, Android, Chrome
Cost: Free
Features:
- Helps you create and share to-do lists with friends, coworkers, or family members.
- Each person with whom you share the list has editing capability.
- Simple and user friendly.
2. TimeyCap: Student Planner, Schedule, and Timetable
Available on: Android
Cost: Free
Features:
- Helps track deadlines for assignments and tests.
- Helps set deadlines for your goals.
- A countdown timer for each goal.
- Tracks weekly progress
- Lets you assign tasks as critical, major, medium, or minor depending on priority.
- Lets you create custom tags or categories.
- Reminder for each goal.
- Can set a timetable according to the week’s schedule.
- Has an optional timer mode for tasks.
- Goals can be viewed in a weekly, monthly, or yearly format.
For Note-taking
1. Evernote
Available on: iOS, Android, Windows, Mac
Cost: Has both free and paid plans. Paid plan-$7.99/month.
Features:
- Notes can be added in the form of audio memos, text, images, sketches, scanned documents, checklists, and clipped web pages.
- Templates for notes are available.
- Create spaces to share and organize tasks and ideas with a group. Each member has access to everything in the space.
2. Microsoft OneNote
Available on: iOS,Android,Windows,macOS,web.
Cost: Free
Features:
- A range of templates to choose from.
- Type, text, drag, or drop images into notes, use digital highlighters, record audio, draw sketches.
- Move each element around a page to make better notes.
- The ink-to-text feature converts handwritten text to type.
- Create new notes whenever you get new tasks using Zapier integration.
For learning
1. Photomath
Available on: Android
Cost: Free
Features:
- Scan math problems to get immediate solutions.
- Multiple methods are available for each question.
- Step by step explanations
- Smart calculator.
- Animated instructions
- The Internet is not required.
- Interactive graphs.
2. Basic Engineering Dictionary
Available on: Android
Cost: Free
Features:
- Wide range of categories for easy learning of basic engineering concepts.
- Games to boost learning.
- Trivia to enhance knowledge.
- Detailed explanations with diagrams to make learning easy.
3. Medscape
Available on: iOS, Android.
Cost: Free
Features:
- Instant clinical answers.
- Latest news and developments in medicine.
- Medscape consult.
- Continuing medical education activities.
4. Formulia
Available on: Android
Cost: Free
Features:
- A variety of formulas for maths, physics, chemistry, and more.
- Wide range of topics.
- Practical interface and simple to use.
- No internet connection required to access formulas
- Variety of tools for performing calculations.
- Perform various unit conversions.
Apps for easy memorization
1. Brainscape
Available on: Android, iOS, Web.
Cost: Free with a pro version starting at $9.99.
Features:
- Train quickly with innovative color-coded flashcards.
- Add images and sounds to your flashcards(pro version).
- Make and share smart flashcards.
- Sync content and progress between devices.
2. Mindomo
Available on: Android
Cost: Free
Features:
- Multiple layouts(mind maps, task maps, concept maps, and more)
- Collaboration in real-time.
- Work even without internet connection with changes updated on the restoration of connection.
- Turn mindmaps into presentations.
- Google Drive, FTP, ZIP, and Dropbox backups.
Apps for scanning documents
1. Adobe Scan
Available on: Android
Cost: Free
Features:
- Scan documents to pdf.
- Border adjustment.
- Rectify imperfections and reuse forms.
- Search to find scans or content.
- Search and find text in pdfs with OCR.
- Alter saved scans.
- Select page size and layout.
2. Notebloc
Available on: Android
Cost: Free
Features:
- Border adjustment.
- Extract text using OCR.
- Organize in folders.
- Change the order of pages.
- Create and share PDFs.
- Sync with Google Drive.
With classes shifted to online platforms due to the current circumstances, students are under more stress than ever trying to adapt to a different mode of education and also maintain their grades. Online classes can be daunting, and we hope that this article helps all the college students out there adapt to them a little better.