Throughout my years of studying, I would do my best to research any new apps that will help me with my work, whether they’re for studying, note-taking, or designing. I’m thankful for the constant evolution of technology that allows programmers, designers, and innovators to create a lot of the apps we use today.
All of the apps I list below are ones I’ve personally used academically, professionally, and leisurely; and have had positive experiences with them. If you’d like me to check out an app or website for students, comment below, message my socials, or request a blog post, and I’ll possibly check them out and write a review on them.
School
ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD
Adobe Creative Cloud is a desktop and mobile software that features apps for photography, video, design, web, UX, and more. My go-to apps for web, graphic design, and UX are Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign. Adobe Premiere for videos, and Adobe Lightroom for photos. Adobe Acrobat is great for saving and viewing documents in a more professional, clean, and safe way.
Whether you’re a design student or not, Adobe Creative Cloud is a useful software to have for any creative project or hobby you’re interested in, such as digital drawings.
CANVA
Canva is an amazing software that offers thousands of free templates that you can play around with to your desire. They have templates for Instagram and Facebook posts, logos, posters, phone wallpapers, collages, YouTube collages, and tons more.
CITATION MACHINE
Citation Machine is my go-to website when I needed my resources cited at the end of any papers. They can cite sources from websites, books, journals, and more. I often forget the proper way of citing my resources, and with Citation Machine, all I’d have to do is fill out the necessary information and they’d have it formatted in MLA or APA format.
DICTIONARY
I personally just love having a dictionary app just in case there’s a word I’m not familiar with and would love/need to know the definition of. I also enjoy learning new words with their “Word of the Day” feature.
FOREST
Forest is a fun app that will help us put our phones away while we study or work. The app works by allowing us to plant trees and watch them grow as long as we don’t get off the app. When we do, our tree stops growing and dies. The goal is to stay focused on our tasks as our forest grows. The bigger our forest, the more it entails how much work we were able to get done. Forest also allows us to spend virtual coins we earn to allow the Forest team to donate to their partners and plant real trees (pro version, and limited to up to 5 trees per user).
GMAIL
Gmail, Outlook, or other email services you use. You may receive important information from your school, instructors, peers, work, or collaborations. The best part about having a Gmail account is that you’ll have access to a multitude of their apps, such as Google Drive (15GB free; $1.99/mo for 100GB), Calendar, Slides, Tasks, and Keep Notes. Aside from Drive, the others I mentioned are completely free to use. These apps are great for reminders and keeping tasks, notes, and events organized. Google Slides is a good way to create presentations if needed for class.
GRAMMARLY
Grammarly is a lifesaver. It’s software that helps automatically fix typos, grammar errors, and other writing mistakes. I have it installed as a Chrome Extension and mobile keyboard, so anytime I’m in a rush, I still have Grammarly available to catch any mistakes I may have, and provide appropriate corrections for them. Do keep in mind that it is still tech software, meaning that it may not understand specific sentence structures or phrases you’re trying to emphasize. Double-check what Grammarly is correcting and make sure that it corrects those that are meant to be corrected and ignores the ones that are taking your own meaning out of context.
KHAN ACADEMY
Khan Academy is an educational organization that was created to help students through a set of online tools. The organization has greatly helped me with my research papers, and now I’m using it to refresh my memory on basic knowledge from Math to Art History.
MICROSOFT OFFICE
Yes, Microsoft Office still exists. I do all of my posts and writings in Microsoft Word, I keep track of my finances and budgeting in Excel, and I do use Outlook for some of my emails. I find these apps very easy and simple to use, especially if I don’t have to worry about making them look pretty. Plus, they still look quite professional when printed on paper.
If you’re in need of inspiration or creating mood boards, Pinterest is an amazing website & app for these. I also enjoy looking for affirmations and positive quotes to save and read whenever I’m feeling down.
PREZI
Besides PowerPoint, I use Prezi, which makes presentations more interesting and enjoyable to not just create but look at as well. Prezi helped eliminate excess paragraphs in my presentations, which allowed me and the viewers to focus more on understanding the information than simply reading it.
SLACK
What I love most about Slack was easily communicating with my instructors outside of class. I lose any worry about having to send all that I need to say in one go because I can just chat with them.
I’ve also used Slack for group projects. Most of the time, I’d get nervous about asking for my peers’ phone numbers to communicate. Slack reduces the hassle of having to ask and name them “First Name + Class Name” on my phone. Through Slack, we were able to share our parts of the project and communicate individually or as a group.
TYPEFORM / GOOGLE FORM
If you ever need to do surveys or forms, Typeform is a fun way to create some. I first saw Typeform when I was answering a survey for a classmate, and it was definitely more interesting to fill out than a regular form. The forms are done in a story typesetting, and users can design them any way they desire.
For quicker and simpler forms, Google Form is another good option. It might not look as interactive as Typeform, but it still gets the job done.
ZOOM MEETINGS
I’ve only used Zoom a couple of times when I was in school, but I do find some of its features interesting. One feature I love is screen sharing. I am a visual learner, so with screen sharing, I can understand my instructor’s lectures better without physically being in class. I talk more about Zoom classes in my Online Learning post.
Health and Wellness
DAILY YOGA
I don’t think I’ll ever stop talking about yoga and the benefits to my mental and physical health. Not only does it provide yoga for flexibility, weight loss, and muscle relief, but Daily Yoga also provides guided meditations to help calm the mind and be in the present moment.
SLEEPTOWN
SleepTown is a sister app to Forest and does basically the same thing as Forest. This time, the app is designed to help you develop better sleep habits. To do this, the app will be building homes as long as you stay within the app, meaning your phone will be kept away so that you can sleep earlier and better. The more homes built, the bigger your town will be, and the more relaxed you’ll feel in the mornings.
Finances
OFFICIAL BANK / CREDIT CARD APP
One of the best ways to keep track of your finances and budgeting is to have convenient access to your bank balances. Check your bank’s website for their official app and have it available on your phone.
PAYPAL
I think PayPal is one of the most, if not the most, safest and fastest ways to virtually send and receive money. I use PayPal for my online shopping and it saves me the hassle of having to input my credit card information every time. I suggest connecting your actual bank account and not just your credit/debit cards as you may get charged extra if you use your cards to pay.
VENMO
Another safe but more casual way of sending and receiving money between friends is Venmo, a service owned by PayPal. Users simply have to create an account, input their bank information and be able to send and receive money to anyone they add as a contact in the app. The money doesn’t go directly to your bank account. It will stay inside the Venmo app until you use it there or transfer it to your account. I use this app all the time if I need to quickly pay any of my friends back, and there’s no additional charge when I directly link to my bank.
Personal
DUOLINGO
Duolingo is a language learning website and mobile app that features over 30+ different languages. I’ve been using the app for years and have always felt that I am learning the languages I’m studying. Of course, there are still moments when I would have to look up more lessons online to help me further understand sentence structures, and the proper ways of using specific terms.
Duolingo is a fun app that helps me unwind throughout my day while still stimulating my brain with learning foreign languages.
MESSAGING APP
Does anyone else remember the times when we’d have to buy calling cards if we want to talk to our loved ones living abroad? Now, thanks to innovators, I’m grateful to have messaging apps, such as Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and WhatsApp to freely communicate with my family and friends anywhere in the world. I love that they are available in both desktop and mobile versions as well.
