Top Study Apps for College Students
If you can't imagine your day without a smartphone or computer, you're not alone. A lot of students use tech, not just for leisure, but also to study and collaborate with peers. Especially with the 2020's unusual circumstances that only increased use and driven dependence. Finding it hard to manage your student life online? Here you'll find a roundup of the best apps for college students that can help you organize your studies and personal health.
Best Apps for College Students to Boost Learning
Universities and colleges do their best to provide you with essential knowledge on your chosen subjects, yet learning experience always comes with a great deal of self-studying. And here are a few apps that can help you learn more about your favorite topics and even study some subjects that aren't taught at school.
Coursera
Coursera is an educational platform from Stanford University founded by computer science professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng. It's one of the best apps for college students to upskill or get a degree from scratch from leading universities and companies like the University of Pennsylvania and IBM.
Aside from lectures, you also get a monitoring system with quizzes to test your progress and the possibility to earn an internationally recognized certificate.
The only downside about the app is that you need a great deal of self-discipline and organization to see a course through to the end. However, there are a few app suggestions in this list to help you with that.
Price: free to join and view course materials; prices for certification start at $39 (USD).
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a non-profit founded back in 2008 by Salman Khan. It offers easy to follow lessons for students of all ages and practice exercises on a variety of topics. You can find lessons on physics, algebra, and all the way up to politics and finance.
The platform is available in English, Hindi, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Price: it's free, however, as a nonprofit, the app accepts donations.
Duolingo
Many people regret not learning to play a musical instrument or a second language when they were younger. If you have some free time on your hands, you can do the latter with Duolingo — a gamified language learning platform. It supports 37 languages, including English, Danish, Welsh, and Swahili.
The courses give bite-sized pieces of information. They're structured like a game so you earn points for completing exercises and level up once your language expertise improves.
Price: access to lessons is free; you can use the app ad-free and offline for $6.99 (USD) a month.
Wordtune
While a foreign language is undoubtedly a learning curve, your mother tongue might also need some brushing up. And with all the typing students do, it's easy to let the errors slip in. Wordtune has a desktop and web app that checks your grammar and spelling while you're writing. You can also add a Chrome extension for suggestions on different websites and apps, including Google Docs.
Price: free for grammar and spell-check; starting at $9.99/month on annual subscription and $24.99 for monthly subscription.
Download: Mac OS | Windows | Chrome
Brainscape
What about retaining the knowledge you acquire in educational apps and at school? Flashcards are a great medium for spaced repetition and Brainscape is one of the best college apps that provide that medium. You can find pre-existing flashcards on a variety of topics or create your own and, best of all, you can connect the app to different devices — study at any time.
Price: free with limited features; the price for additional features for creating and using flashcards at no limit starts at $4.99 (USD) a month.
StuDocu
Founded in 2013 by four Dutch students, StuDocu is an online, global community where students and educators can share study materials with other students around the world. StuDocu covers all subjects and has course-specific study resources for more than 1,500 universities worldwide. They aim to empower everyone to excel in their studies and in life, promote lifelong learning, and engage every student with the learning process by giving them the tools to study more efficiently.
Today, the platform helps over 15 million students every month and is one of the biggest educational websites in the world, having access to over 8 million study resources.
Price: 80% of their content is free. To access the remaining 20%, you would need to purchase a Premium Account starting at $41.88 (varies per country and plan). Or, you can gain access by uploading your own study materials. The Premium Account allows you to download and print, study guides (uploading is always possible).
Best Apps for College Students to Help Organize Studies
These days, plenty of apps for college students are designed to make that student life easier.
iHomework
Wouldn't it be great to keep track of your college assignments and remember to study for upcoming tests with free apps? Do you ever wonder, "Are there study apps for college students that can help me?"
iHomework is the solution you've been looking for. This is one of the best study apps for college students, which is essentially a homework organizer, where you can store all the studying-related data you want. You are also able to set notifications that will remind you about deadlines and assignments that need to be finished.
Unfortunately, it only works for Apple devices as a mobile app, but you can use it online otherwise.
Price: free with in-app purchases.
Download: iOS
Trello
While iHomework is targeted at managing a learning schedule and assignments, you might want to have a more versatile tool for different projects in your life as well as studies. Trello is a handy tool for managing different types of work; for example, you can create a project for coursework or a thesis with tasks (all the steps you need to take to finish the work, like researching and editing) and status (the standard lot — to-do, in progress, done).
Trello boards can be used for all sorts of things, not just study/work-related. For example, you can create a board with your favorite movies, TV shows, or books. Add what you've seen or read and your thoughts about it. That way you can organize your likes and dislikes, or create a to-watch or to-read list.
Price: it's free; however, you can get additional features (e.g., bigger attachment size) and power-ups starting at $9.99 (USD) per month)
Google Drive
Google Drive is one of the best cloud storage services to save the data and documents you definitely don't want to lose. Sure, there are plenty of other free apps for college students (like Dropbox, for example), but Google Drive offers not only a large amount of storage space (15GB for free accounts), but also office apps, such as Docs, Google Calendar, Sheets, Notes, and many others.
This means you are able to store not only documents (projects, essays, various files), but other important data can be saved there as well.
Price: free with limited storage; you can sign up for Google Workspace starting at $6 (USD) for more storage and additional perks.
StayFocusd
A list of best apps for college has to have some sort of self-discipline aid, and StayFocusd is a good option for that. It is a Chrome extension that helps you parent yourself and monitor how much time you spend on certain websites or block access completely. If YouTube or Facebook gets in the way of your education, you can put a tracker on how much time you can spend there a day and avoid the guilt you might feel afterward.
Price: it's a free extension, though you can donate to the developers.
Freedom
If you want to pull the plug on social media or other websites and apps completely without any leeways, Freedom might be a better option for you. It's an app that works on any device and allows you to create block-lists with no limit to the number of websites on it, block distracting apps, schedule downtime, and even block the Internet altogether.
Price: 7 free sessions; you can get a $2.42/month subscription if you pay for the whole year.
Download: Mac OS | Windows | iOS | Android
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
Accidental file deletion, sudden system crash, unexpected power off…
We've all been through those data loss scenarios. Fortunately, tools like EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard help you back up and secure your most important study files.
We like this one for its ease of use and good performance in data recovery.
Recovering deleted files has never been so simple and their free version helps to recover up to 2GB data at most. That's quite helpful in many cases!
Mailbird helps you stay on top of your mails and projects.
Best Apps for College Students to Organize Personal Life
Strava
Many students want to remain fit during their college years. Some, however, struggle in the process. Combining physical activities with a college education can be stressful, especially when you do it on your own. It's not always easy to motivate yourself, find time for exercise, and so on.
However, this doesn't have to be so hard. Strava's app is designed especially for those who want to work on fitness but feel like they need help, with some company and extra motivation. Basically, it's a social network for people who run, cycle, jog, or walk. It allows you to set goals and share your progress with others, making the process more enjoyable while holding yourself accountable.
Price: free for activity recording and device support; full functionality cost starts at $7.99 (USD) a month.
MyFitnessPal
A balanced diet and a good fitness routine undoubtedly have a good impact on mental health, and inadvertently, on your brain, studies, and life in general. MyFitnessPal helps you stay on track with your diet and exercise. You can even connect it to a fitness tracker and send activity data automatically.
Price: free limited use; starting at $9.99 (USD) for meal plans, personalized goals, and an ad-free interface.
Headspace
Aside from diet and fitness, another proven positive factor for mental health and, in turn, productivity, is meditation. Headspace is one of the best apps for guided meditation. It helps beginners start meditating, if for a few minutes daily, and learn more about meditation and its types.
Price: starting at $12.99 (USD); you get a 2-week free trial.
Mint
Maybe a budget tracker is not something you would expect on a list of apps for college students, but managing personal finances is a constant struggle for many students. The Mint app can ease the process significantly. It allows you to keep track of expenses, set budget goals, and better understand where your money goes.
Moreover, it's very simple to understand. It doesn't require much effort to use, and it can strengthen your financial planning skills and credit score quickly and effectively.
Mailbird
College students send and receive a ton of emails. Between personal correspondences from friends and family back home, daily newsletters, Amazon order updates, campus events, and crucial information from your professors, there's a lot to keep organized. Luckily, Mailbird is a perfect app for college students. It is a Windows-based app that consolidates all your email accounts into one unified inbox, so you can easily stay on top of your email game.
Mailbird also integrates with a lot of other popular apps — like Google Drive, Evernote, WhatsApp, and Dropbox — allowing you to manage all your online communication from one place, without ever leaving Mailbird. This is great for working through your emails and tasks in an efficient and focused manner.
Mailbird helps you stay on top of your mails and projects.
Spotify
This is one of the top apps college students should install if they enjoy listening to music. Many students know Spotify as it is one of the most popular apps for college students. It is the place where popular music and the latest hits can be found - but that's not the only reason it's great.
Spotify has many playlists created by other students that can help you focus on your assignments while studying. Of course, it might take some time to find the right playlists for you - but it's still much easier than trying to create one yourself.
Feedly
Students spend plenty of time online, whether they're researching something useful like cause and effect essay topics or simply relaxing on social media or Reddit. However, not every student is able to keep up with the current news and recent updates as much as they want to - students' lives are hectic, after all.
Feedly can ease the process for you. It's one of the RSS apps for college students, where you can add your favorite websites as blogs to view in one feed. You can also turn on notifications to ensure you won't miss important updates — one of the reasons it is considered one of the top free apps for busy college students.
Conclusion
As you can see, not all of the best apps for college students are related to homework and studying. That's because this list is designed not only to make you a more productive student but also to improve the quality of your college life in general. We hope you will enjoy these apps!
FAQs about Apps for College Students
Why should a college student use certain apps?
A student should find apps that can help him or her with assignments, note taking, research, file storage, problem solving, and time management. Using such apps is a sure way to be productive.
How long should a college student study?
A college student should study around one to two hours per day. Ideally, you should study for two hours per one hour of class. By using the top apps for college students, you can make your study time even more productive.
What is the best study method?
The best study method is to find the time when you can study in the most productive way. It is also very important that you take notes, keep a careful record of all your assignments, and use technology — including study apps — to save time and increase your productivity.
What is the best app for students?
There are many great study apps for college students to make their studies more effective and productive. One of the best is Mailbird. You can easily integrate it with other apps, including Google Drive, Evernote, and Dropbox. In addition to Mailbird, Spotify, Mint, SelfControl, and Google Drive are other great options.
