5 Apps Every College Student Needs

Technology is constantly changing our every day lives as well as how we learn. With so many resources and apps out there, it can be difficult to know which apps to use in college are really worth it.

I used an iPad Pro while in college {read more about that here}, and have found many useful apps that helped me through undergrad!

Quizlet

Quizlet was definitely my saving grace all throughout college. It is a website and phone/tablet flash card app where you can make your own flashcards or study from someone else’s cards.

My favorite feature on Quizlet is the Learn feature. After you create your flashcards, the Learn feature shows you your card and then gives you multiple choice options for the answer.

The second time you see that card, you have to type the answer. If you get it wrong, it will show you that card again in a few minutes. If you get it right, you have mastered it and Learn won’t show you that card again.

Since you create a Quizlet account, you can access your cards through the website on your laptop, and through the app on your mobile devices for on-the-go studying!

Anki is another flashcard app that is mostly focused on desktop/laptops. I tried using Anki for the MCAT but I really prefer the interface of Quizlet and I think typing out the answer helps me learn more. I hope to learn more and really master Anki before medical school!

Anki is helpful because you rank how confident you are with that card and then it shows you that card again in a few minutes, a day, or a couple of days depending on your level of confidence. With this feature, it really counts on you using the Anki app every day to study.

There are also tons of add-ons that you can download to customize your Anki experience.

GoodNotes

In the war of GoodNotes vs. Notability, I think GoodNotes has the upper hand. I have used both and I think the layout and organization of GoodNotes is really what puts it ahead.

{Side bar, would you all be interested in a GoodNotes vs. Notability post??}

In GoodNotes, you create folders for your classes and within those folders you can have digital notebooks, PDFs, images, and more. I really like how everything is grouped together and hidden within folders.

A cool feature that I like about GoodNotes is the word search feature. You can search for a word, either typed or handwritten, and the app will highlight and show you where that word appears. This is super helpful when you are reviewing your notes and cannot find a specific topic.

You can even have folders inside other folders. I created a folder for my semester and then folders within it for each of my classes. The navigation is similar to a desktop interface; materials are stored within folders that can also then be stored within other folders.

Notability seemed too spread out for me. When I used it, I made a main category with my class and then separate notes for each chapter/exam section.

Notability displays your categories and notes as a drop down menu on the side of the screen and I did not like how many separate note spots I had on my sidebar.

GoodNotes vs. Notability is really a personal preference and I definitely recommend downloading both and see which one is the best fit for you!

For more about note-taking apps to use in college, check out this post!

Forest

Forest is a studying app that allows you to set a time that you will stay focused for and a digital tree grows in the app during that time.

If you leave the Forest app, your tree will die {sad}.

For all the iPad/tablet people like me, I recommend getting this app just on your phone since you are probably studying on your iPad and will need to leave the Forest app in order to study!

This is a great app for students who get distracted easily by their phone! It is so easy to fall into a trap of “oh I don’t really get this…let’s just check Instagram for a bit…” and then an hour later you have not gotten any studying done! {Definitely do not know this from personal experience…}

Forest also works well for those of you who study with the Pomodoro method because you can set the exact time you want to study for!

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Every paperless student knows that you need a good PDF reader!

My favorite is Adobe Acrobat Reader. It’s a free app with a premium membership paid option. I never got the premium membership and I do not think I missed out on any necessary features.

This app is great for annotating and highlighting any PDFs your professors may give you. For me, that was lots and lots of journal articles.

If you choose not to take notes on your iPad, this app could be a substitute for GoodNotes/Notability. 50% of my materials on GoodNotes were my handwritten notes, and the other 50% were articles to read and annotate.

If you want to stick to a pen and paper for taking notes, Adobe Acrobat Reader is a replacement for printing out articles!

Calendar

To be a super paperless, you need a digital calendar/planner! I have always preferred paper planners but have definitely dabbled in the digital planner world!

There’s always the Apple Calendar app. My whole family uses this to coordinate our schedules. It was very useful in high school when my dad needed to know where I needed to be and when!

And for all you diehard Applers like myself, you can get the Apple Calendar app on all your devices. There is even a widget for your Apple Watch to tell you what event you have coming up next!

Google calendar is also very useful. I never used the app, but I used it on my laptop as a test run for scheduling my MCAT studying.

When I worked in the lab in undergrad, {which you can find out more about here} our schedule was synced to a Google calendar. This was an easy way to share the work schedule with everyone and see how my study schedule and extracurriculars meshed with my research.

There are also lots of PDF digital planners out there that are compatible with GoodNotes and Notability if you want a more customized look! You could even design your own.

When deciding what apps to use in college, it is definitely a trial-and-error process. There are tons of apps that I have downloaded and never used and others that I used and ended up deleting. Find which apps are a best fit for you and contribute the most to your learning! A simple check list to get you started is a note taking app, calendar, and flashcards.

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