They say that high school is the best time of your life, but why can’t college be instead? Yeah, finals week and getting internships are both pretty rough but fret not! We’re here to help with six apps for college students that will help you survive (and hopefully thrive.)
1. Google Drive
Price: (Pretty much) Free
What does it do?: Who doesn’t know what Google Drive is? For the small percentage that don’t, here’s an overview. In addition to all the other services Google offers for free, they also offer free cloud storage to anyone with a Gmail account (up to 15GB). After that, you’ll have to pay– but it’s pretty unlikely you’ll use up that storage anyway. Even if you do, it costs less than a tall vanilla frappuccino from Starbucks for 100GB of storage! It’s hard to complain about that. You can upload almost any file to Google Drive, and you can access it on pretty much any of your devices. If you’re not using Google Drive, you’re missing out.
Why is it useful to a college student?: It’s really common to collaborate on work in college and using Google Drive is an extremely easy way to do that. Plus, who doesn’t like to access their files on multiple platforms? The pricing isn’t too shabby either.
2. Evernote
Price: Freemium
What does it do?: It’s pretty self-explanatory, but you mainly use Evernote for everything notes-related. Evernote can do everything from save audio recordings, scan files, videos, and reminders to leaving annotations, drawings, and of course, written word notes on a file. It’s simple to use (yet flexible) and is accessible on basically any device.
Why is it useful to a college student?: Everyone takes notes differently and different note-taking methods might be pertinent to different classes and situations. Imagine you’re in music class. How would you plan to take notes for what a tune actually sounds like by typing down words? Audio recordings would be absolutely clutch for things like this. Are you an engineering student? Sounds like you’ll be drawing a lot of models– Evernote does that too. The best part about Evernote? You probably won’t max out your free storage until you graduate (AKA have a great paying job).
3. Mint
Price: Freemium
What does it do?: Mint is an app that helps you keep your financial life together. It manages your money and keeps track of how much money you’re spending, what you’re spending your money on, your overall bank balance, budgets, bill paying, and even credit scores. It’s basically the closest thing to a financial coach you can find in the app store.
Why is it useful to a college student?: It keeps you from being (more) broke. Being a college student generally means you’re really tight on money and ramen noodles basically become your best friend. Obviously, you don’t want to live that ramen lifestyle all the time. Everyone likes to spoil themselves sometimes. Mint helps you keep track of your finances so that your “sometimes” don’t become “all the times”.
4. Venmo
Price: Free (Until you owe your friend money)
What does it do?: Have you ever had a friend who promised to pay you back for covering their Chipotle, but never did? This app helps prevent that from happening ever again. With Venmo, you can make payments and receive payments to anybody who has the app. The best part of this app is that it takes exactly 0% commission on all transactions! The only payments you have to make with Venmo are to your friends when you forget to bring your wallet to lunch.
Why is it useful to a college student?: Let’s be real. Money is especially tight when you’re a student and not everybody is honest about paying people back. Venmo is an awesome way to avoid keeping “tabs” on your friends and receive payments in general.
5. Facebook
Price: Free
What does it do?: You know exactly what Facebook does.
Why is it useful to a college student?: This might sound pretty silly to add to the list, but Facebook is especially useful to college students. Facebook has evolved from a social network to the way people exchange contact information, find out and RSVP for events, buy and sell used goods, and join class groups. Want to meet more people in your major? There’s probably a Facebook group for that (if not, you can make one yourself in 5 minutes). Want to check out what’s going on tonight? There’s a feature for that. Even if Facebook isn’t “cool” anymore, most people in college use it, and it’s a great tool.
6. Alarmy
Price: Free
What does it do?: Alarmy wakes you up, whether you like it or not. Alarmy is built to intentionally make it difficult for you to turn off your morning alarm. You could set it up to turn off when you take a picture of your shower head, shake your phone a bunch of times, finish a math problem, etc. Talk about a wakeup call!
Why is it useful to a college student?: Nothing is worse than sleeping through your final exams (or any class for that matter). Avoid the headache and give Alarmy a try; it’s free!
Although these are very useful apps for college students, they’re also useful for almost anybody. Maybe after you graduate and get your first job out of college, you can upgrade to the premium plans and unlock their true potential. For the meanwhile, enjoy the student perks and freemium lifestyle.
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