Top 11 Apps for Students

They say that your college days are the best days of your life, but we all know that being a student can also be very stressful. To make your life easier, we´ve compiled a list of the best apps for your smartphone/tablet/laptop, so you can really live out the ´best days of your life´ to the fullest and manage your college duties without haste.

SoundNote is an iPad app perfect for when you want to get some sleep during that dreadfully boring class (not that we encourage it, but we definitely understand), when you simply can´t concentrate or the lecturer is just talking too fast.  You can type, draw with very simple and easy-to-use tools, and of course, record audio. If you thought ´well, I have a voice recorder on my phone, I don´t need to download an extra app for that´, hear us out. Not only does SoundNote record audio, it also has a search-by-word option, basically meaning that you can just tap on the word you last typed before trailing off, and SoundNote will jump to that part of the audio recording so you can write down the rest.  It´s brilliant – and costs only €3.99!

If you ever seriously considered dropping out of college because you just finished writing another essay that drained the life out of you, you are not the only one. Maybe the most painstaking part of writing an essay is finding and correctly writing the citations. For every word wrongly italicised, for every symbol that’s not in its place, you´re losing valuable points. That´s why EasyBib is here to do that job for you! Just search the book, journal or website that you´re using, and EasyBib will create a bibliography entry for you. All you have to do then is copy-paste and you´re done! You can even scan the barcode of the book you have in your hand, and the app will find you the needed citation!

For those who do not wish to carry a laptop with them wherever they go – this group of apps is the solution! With a Microsoft all-star lineup (Word, PowerPoint and Excel) at your fingertips, you can forget about dragging around a laptop in your backpack at all times. You can download it for your tablet or phone and it basically has all the same functions as it would on a computer! Recently, MS Office also introduced an option of mutual access, meaning that anyone who has access can edit the document, which certainly comes in handy when you are working on a group project.

You´ve probably heard about this one already but we´re going to bring it up anyways. Evernote is the perfect app for keeping all your notes safely stored in one place. A note can be anything – a typed up text, scanned handwritten notes (which the app then transforms into a document that can be edited), photos, audio files, links, anything! With Evernote, you can create and organize notes easily, set new appointments and deadlines, keep track of them, share data between devices and much more! You can choose the basic FREE version or one of the plans for a version that best suits your needs, for example the popular Premium or more sophisticated Business version.

People have different ways of studying, and if you´re one of those who loves mind maps, then SimpleMind is the app for you! With this app you can create your own mind maps in virtually any shape and size. One can also add photos, videos and voice memos to different points of the map, thus creating a multimedia experience that makes it even easier to study! You can also use this interactive app for brainstorming and organizing your ideas. SimpleMind offers a free version, and you can get a Pro version for a one-time fee from 6.99€.

Unlike the other apps on this list, the getAbstract corporation was founded in 1999. It specializes in summarizing a range of non-fictional books and articles. It currently has more than 15 000 summaries available. Forget about spending all those sleepless nights reading through hundreds of pages in order to extract just a few pages of valuable information – getAbstract does that job for you! The app itself is free to download, but there are in-app purchases, depending on what you´re looking for. All summaries take about 10 minutes to read or listen to, so you can get the most important info you need on the go.

Forest is an app perfect for keeping you focused on your tasks, even if you don´t want to. It´s an anti-procrastinating app in a way, and it works like this: First, set the timer on the app (up to 120) minutes and start it in order to plant a (virtual) tree. If you leave the app, you have about a minute to return to it, otherwise your tree will die. Once you’ve done the time, your tree will be fully grown and will become a part of your forest.For every tree you grow, you receive coins. But that´s not all. Once you’ve collected 2500 coins, you can spend it in the app and plant a REAL TREE! The Forest app has planted more than 800 000 trees thanks to its users. Stay focused while helping the environment! The app costs €2.29 and offers in-app purchases. 

We cannot write this list without mentioning Dropbox. This app is essentially a storage place for files that can be accessible from all devices. It´s one of the pioneering apps when it comes to cloud storage, and even though nowadays Apple, Android and Microsoft all have their own cloud services, people use Dropbox simply because it´s universal. You can download different Dropbox apps for free, but you should expect some in-app purchases for certain features. Managing your projects and data really would be impossible without Dropbox!