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Ah, college– the dinning halls, the cramped-but-cozy dorms, and the smell of fresh textbooks–
never loses its charm. But those four years are far from being a walk in the park. I know college can get overwhelming, from trying to remember to study for your next exam, writing a five page paper, juggling a part time job and maintaining a social life. If you’re a first year student time, management can get difficult at first , but I am here to share a few digital hacks that are available right at your fingertips ( literally). Hopefully these hacks will make your college experience a tad bit easier.
1. Evernote
What is Evernote? you may ask… business insider says it best, evernote is an app that stores everything you could possibly imagine losing track of like a boarding pass, receipt, article you want to read, to do list or even a simple typed list. You can download Evernote on your computer as well as your smart phone, an account is required in order to keep track of all files.
How does this help me in college? Evernote changes the way we take notes. If you get bored with plain paper and pen you can use Evernote on your phone, tablet or computer to take notes in class (check approval from professor prior). Let us say you took the notes on your phone while in class and when it comes time to study it is also available on your tablet and computer, so NOO more lost class notes. If you have a bad habit of losing class handouts/assignments, you can use a scanner, or even your phone’s camera, to quickly digitize your syllabi, project descriptions, and graded papers so that you never have to worry about losing the original copies. Students are so many things these days: scholars, interns, friends, club presidents. You can set up different notebooks in Evernote to give these activities their own space, but everything will still be in a central hub. It is like having filing cabinets that are with you everywhere. OHH! And did I forget to mention you can record lectures right on Evernote? Yea! Therefore, you never miss a lecture while sleeping again. For more in depth Evernote hacks check here.
2. Google Drive
Google drive has a lot of similarities to Evernote such as, you can access same files from any device, like the essay that you started on the computer at home, you can continue to type on your phone while on break at work or commuting to school. The one thing that stands out with google drive is the ability to share files. As long as you are still in school, group projects/assignments will always be assigned. In college, every student has different class schedules, work schedules and so on. If a group project is assigned it’s almost impossible to get everyone together to work on the assignment outside of class. What I’ve done in the past is assign every group member to a task for the assignment. Google drive allows you to share files with anyone with a Gmail account. Therefore, everyone can work on the assignment at different locations. For example, there’s a group project assigned and the project is to make a slideshow presentation, I would start a presentation on google slides, share the presentation with the other group members and assign each group member to work on a slide, sharing the slide allows each group member to add their part on that one slideshow.
3. Quizlet
If you have never heard of Quizlet than you have been living under a rock all your life. Quizlet is the modern day flashcards. Quizlet allows you to make flash cards just like you would on the actual paper (ex. words on one side, def. on the other). Quizlet goes above and beyond by taking the flashcards that you made and turning them into a test. The test includes all formats that are usually used such multiple choice, fill in the blank, etc. Just like all the other apps mentioned Quizlet allows you to access your notecards on any device.
4. MINT
Worried about blowing your budget? Use the Mint.com app to manage all your money in one place. View all your accounts — checking, savings, credit cards — and automatically add and categorize your transactions, all within the app.
5. Combine student email with personal email
Although this is not an app, this is a must for all college students. As a college student we all have a student email address. Anytime the school or professors want to contact you, it would done through your student email. Professors are usually not allowed to email you through personal email. How many people can actually say they check both student and personal email daily? I didn’t think so. Most people don’t know this but you can get all your emails from your student account to be forwarded to your personal email so every time you receive an email it all come in one place, Here’s how…
Step 1
Open your Internet mail account. Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hot Mail and most others have a tool called “Settings” that may be represented by a gear or an “Options” heading in the control panel bar at the top of the screen.
Step 2
Open the tab marked “Forwarding.” This may be marked with email types such as IMAP or POP. If nothing appears with these headings, run a search for “Forwarding Mail” inside the email client page.
Step 3
Find the heading that reads “Add Forwarding Address” or similar and enter the primary address you want all your mail sent to in Outlook 2013.
Step 4
Confirm your forwarding email address and review the various choices offered, such as if you want to keep copies on the server or confirm your changes by responding to a separate email sent to your account before changes can take effect.
Step 5
Save all changes after completing your settings modifications.
