Studying has never been easy. Especially now when you have to juggle tens of assignments, extracurricular activities, hobbies, work, and personal life. Luckily, there are many programs and applications that can help students simplify the routine, improve productivity, and get high grades. In this article, we are going to cover software in nine different categories that every student should try.
1. Screen recorders
The recent switch to online education made students search for new instruments and programs. A professional screen recorder is one of them. It allows keeping a screen capture or video of lectures, presentations, online calls, instructions, and academic events on your computer, smartphone, or cloud storage. With screen recorders, you can revise the material as many times as you want without missing anything out.
2.Planning software
Students face tens of assignments on a daily basis. Each of them requires background knowledge, research, practice, and writing which adds hundreds of smaller tasks and requirements. Thus, planning and task management software become a vital necessity. These programs help to organize and plan the schedule, set notifications, create spreadsheets, and keep track of tasks completion. The best paid and free software in this category includes Timetable, Class Timetable, and Monday.
3. Note-taking tools
The key to academic success lies in being attentive during lectures and remembering huge volumes of information. Fortunately, you no longer have to take notes on the pieces of paper and trying not to lose them. There are numerous note-taking mobile and web applications that help to make records and synchronize them between various devices.
There are thousands of such apps on the market and to choose the best one you should first decide what features you require. For example, some need styluses and image-to-text options, while others prefer good-old text notes. The app should also be easy to use and convenient, and not cost a fortune. For example, Evernote satisfies these criteria, copes with literally any format, and has a great tool for organizing the records.
4. Discounts and special offers
Who doesn’t like discounts? Students are often short of money, so having an opportunity to spend less is a great perspective. There are many websites with discounts for students where you can find deals in your location or a particular category. For example, apparel, beauty, computers, dorm room items, travel, textbooks, and even student loans. Don’t forget to set the notifications not to miss the most rewarding deals.
5.Bibliography apps
There are thousands of apps aimed to help students. And it is difficult to find more useful software than the one which creates academic entries simply by scanning the book’s barcode. This means that you don’t need to master the required bibliography style and then type every entry on your own. Just take a picture of the book’s barcode or title, choose the required style (for example, Chicago, APA, or MLA), and let the app do the rest. With the help of bibliography applications, you won’t have to worry about lower grades because of the wrong formatting or reference list structure.
6. Revision applications
Practice makes perfect, they say. That is why to master the subject you need to revise the material as frequently as possible. And one of the most effective ways to do it is to use revision apps that create card sets, flashcards, mind maps, quizzes, and notes on the uploaded material. You can save them to Google Docs or another medium of your choice and revise the material any time you want. To go even further, use the free video editor software to make short clips and gifs for better comprehension.
7. Alarm clocks
If you are a persistent snoozer and regularly miss classes, installing an alarm application is surely the right option. Instead of unobtrusive melodies that are easy to ignore, you can use Alarmy or a similar app that requires completing tasks and puzzles to turn the alarm off. Plus, such software comes with weather updates and other useful notifications. There are even alarm applications that synchronize with your sleeping patterns and wake you up during the light sleep phase. Thus, you always feel well-rested and full of energy.
8.Healthy eating and fitness apps
For most students, education takes all the time and they forget about rest, healthy nutrition, and physical activity. However, these three ingredients are the pillars of a great academic performance, so should be taken into account as well.
Considering that students often have a limited budget and lack time, they might need the assistance of tools that contain cheap and easy-to-cook recipes, as well as short training sessions without any equipment. For example, MealBoard plans your grocery shopping and meals, and Zombies, Run! turns an exhausting running routine into an adventure.
9. Academic writing tools
On the Internet, you can find lots of free and paid tools and websites that help with writing essays, research papers, and even theses. Just select a topic, indicate the number of sources, deadline, required citing style, and press the order button. Free apps gather abstracts of topic-related text to help you boost your imagination. Paid ones can even create a brand-new academic assignment that will successfully pass any plagiarism check. However, we always recommend doing the work on your own for the best results and skill upgrades.
Optimize your learning
Managing your study-life balance, making notes, staying fit and healthy, and recording lectures becomes much simpler when you use the instruments discussed above. But they are just the tip of the iceberg and if you want to boost studies even further, it will not be superfluous to master self-control, dictating, and video editing software that are represented with tens or even hundreds of tools on the web. Good luck!
