Top useful apps for college students

Modern technology is commonly criticized: the Internet disconnects people, everyone sits on dates with their phones, and mobile games are the main enemy of academic progress. Despite the fact that we are indeed often distracted by messages on social networks and ripe crops of carrots, smartphones and other technology can and should be used for the benefit of ourselves and our studies. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible to find a reliable write my paper service, so you could go to a party or take a rest while still having your assignment done. Developers have done a great deal to make life easier for students.

1. Puzzle Alarm Clock

How many times have you overslept classes because your hand turned off the alarm bell by itself before your brain even had time to wake up? The Puzzle Alarm Clock app effectively fights this: in order to silence their alarm clock, you must first solve several puzzles that appear in random order. If you’re afraid you might fall asleep even after them, the alarm clock will ask you to confirm that you’re awake, or it will ring again. And for the sleepiest, Puzzle Alarm Clock has a feature that will turn off the alarm clock only when you scan the selected barcode. For example, the shower gel in the bathroom or yogurt in the fridge.

2. Timetable

There are a huge number of electronic schedulers, but they tend to be customized for work, not for study. But the simple and good-looking Timetable app is aimed at school and university schedules. Not only can you enter in the times for classes and additional training, but also enter in your homework, term papers, tests, and exams. Under each subject, you can specify what days and where classes are held, when the exam is scheduled, and even the name of the teacher. Collecting information in this way, the app will not only remind you that it’s time to study, but it will also put your phone into silent mode for the duration of the lesson.

3. MyScript Calculator

Endless calculations and long multi-level formulas are a challenging daily reality for any technical student. If you use a regular mobile calculator, calculations have to be done in several steps, with inevitable errors and recalculations over and over again. This problem is solved by MyScript Calculator – a calculator with handwriting input support, which allows not only to write the whole calculations, but also not to bother with typing in degrees and roots, and write the same way as in the notebook – the application itself will translate the written in characters and give the result. Thus, the probability of error is minimized, while your speed and convenience increase. You also can save some time from doing your homework and watching some inspiring movies that would motivate you to do better in other assignments.

4. Scanbot

During studying we often have to use library books, which can only be studied in the reading room, as well as teaching guides, one for every three of you. As for someone else’s lecture notes, they are not worth talking about. In a situation where you need to quickly copy a large amount of text, the Scanbot scanning application will be better than a cell phone camera. Scanbot allows you to immediately sort the photographed documents into different albums so there is no confusion later, it can upload the resulting images to the cloud or convert them into a PDF file. There’s also a paid version of the application that has a text recognition function.

5. Clockwork Tomato

Clockwork Tomato is a simple and effective timer based on the famous “tomato” technique, in which periods of intense work are replaced by short breaks. In the classic version, this ratio is 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest, which helps the brain to switch and rest, but the application allows the user to choose the amount of time intervals himself. You can also customize the app, for example, the number of “tomatoes”, the length of the big break that comes after going through several cycles, the sounds at the end, etc.

Working with the timer, on the one hand, motivates one to work concentrated and not distracted, and on the other hand, will remind students who are engrossed in their studies to take a break and, thus, will prevent neither laziness nor overwork.

6. ToDoist

ToDoist is a simple planner with an intuitive interface that allows you to write down a sudden appointment or a rescheduled date in a couple of clicks. It is convenient for quick short notes on matters and events when there is no time or possibility to write them down in detail. At the same time, the planner is quite functional: you can divide tasks into groups and monitor the progress of each “project”, view tasks according to their urgency, importance, etc., and set reminders. For each completed task, you get “karma” points, which motivates you to keep working. In the paid version, the application can be synchronized with Google Calendar.

7. Nike+ Training Club

Students often forget this, but to study successfully, it pays to keep yourself in great shape: if the body is too exhausted, the mind stops working well, too. For breaks (especially during an exam period), exercising is excellent. Nike+ Training Club is a cool free sports app. It contains a lot of different workouts: stretching, strength, cardio. All of them are followed by detailed explanations and video instructions from famous fitness trainers.

8. AppBlock

The main disadvantage of smartphones is that they distract us all the time. Messages from friends, alerts about the long unfed fish in a game or the finished castle in another, reminders about grandma’s birthday, and that it’s time for a drink of water. Apps make life easier or a little more fun, but they don’t let you focus at all. To help focus, AppBlock is great. It will block distracting apps during the hours you set (e.g., those set aside for studying for exams) so that you can’t access them at that time, and you will not get any notifications, which will allow you to be more productive.

9. FBReader

People never read as much as they do when they’re students. Even if you don’t read fiction and don’t study in the humanities, you still have to read a huge number of textbooks. FBReader is an e-book reader that supports all the most common formats. Convenient and easy to use, it will allow you to study the necessary literature not only at home but also on the way, in queues and at lunch, which will speed up the learning process and save some time.

These apps will make your college life much easier, though they are not the only services you could use. You can always find some helpful reddit reviews for other services that will help you to enjoy your college, have time for some fun, and still be good at studying.