College? There’s an app for that! Well, lots of apps, actually. Each semester we find new apps that are the next social media trend, health buddy, or just all around life saver. And honestly, college students are getting not only more high-maintenance (just kidding), but also really, really, ambitious. And ambitious people need ambitious technology to help them change the world. While there are far too many apps for college students to list here that are both resourceful and unique, here are some of the latest game changers that fuel our technological hunger. Below are 25 apps every college student should have!
What’s great about these exciting times in tech development is that certain apps are not only really useful for students, but they have sparked generational phenomena. Spotify, Uber, and many other platforms are not just things that you download, but are world-famous movements that have changed, created, or shook entire industries to their core and will be known for years (and case studies) to come.
Food Delivery Apps For College Students
When you live on campus you often don’t have access to a kitchen to cook your own food. On top of that, most freshmen are not allowed a car on campus so getting groceries is pretty much impossible. When you get tired of your meal plan (so pretty much everyday lol), your next best option is to get food delivered to your dorm. With the Grubhub app, you will have access to the largest takeout selection in your area right from your phone and get what you’re craving delivered straight to your dorm. Whether you are in the mood for tacos, pizza or pad thai, Grubhub has got you covered. Download the Grubhub app and get $15 off your first two orders of $20 or more with the promo code GHSOCIETY19.
Learning Apps For College Students
Want to learn a language? DuoLingo’s free app takes all the benefits of Rosetta Stone and puts it in an easy to use (and free!) app. If you want a foreign language credit but always have a full schedule, you may be able to dedicate your time outside of classes to the app and CLEP (College Level Examination Program) out of the foreign language!
Going for the LSAT, MCAT or GMAT? Benchprep will help make sure you are sufficiently prepared through the use of digital flash cards and other study materials.
Note cards are many people’s preferred way to study, but they’re also hard to keep track of. Cram is just the solution; allowing you to create your own custom flashcard decks or even searching for pre-created decks on your topic of study.
Have you found yourself swamped with countless essays to write this semester? While there’s not an app to write the papers for you (at least not yet), there is one to automatically generate citations. EasyBib takes a picture of the ISBN/Barcode of the book and inputs the citation in MLA, APA or Chicago to your phone. You can then email the citations to yourself! No more losing easy points on papers because of citations.
It definitely doesn’t hurt to have a dictionary conveniently tucked away in your back pocket (or purse…or backpack – wherever you keep your phone). When you’re reviewing a lecture or reading a text book and you stumble across a word you don’t understand, just take out your phone and look it up. This is great for improving your vocabulary.
It’s like if Pinterest, Excel, sticky notes, group chats, checklists, and email threads all had a child together. This app is awesome for project management and group work. If you are a hardcore organizer with a high-stakes project, or are just sick of your team members in class, try this tool to help you organize and manage different tasks that come up in a project, with visual interaction for increased accountability.
Productivity Apps For College Students
If you are a procrastinator, or someone who is easily distracted, this app might be exactly what you’re looking for. This app actually works best on a laptop as it restricts your access to distracting websites for a designated amount of time. This means you can study, write you paper, or do your research work without any temptations from outside websites.
Keep track of your life in the palm of your hand. Seriously. You can track every assignment, deadline, appointment (or whatever) and set reminders…this app is a life saver for the forgetful.
Sunrise is an app with a companion webpage (sunrise.am) that serves as an easy to use calendar. Since you sync it with your email account, you can quickly input dates from emails or texts with a push of a button. Great for keeping track of meetings!
School Necessities Apps For College Students
Registration can be super stressful. But for some colleges, Courseoff can pull up all of the classes that will be offered right before the registration period begins, so you can schedule however you want before your school’s actual registration happens. This means zero stress when registering, because not only can you see all the details of next semester’s courses; you can also play around with times and sections on the calendar, giving you a nice visual to how your week will look – literally. You can also make multiple back-up schedules and share them all with your friends! (The mobile app has almost no functionality except for being able to see your calendar, so I would recommend using the website.)
We all know that a new semester means new textbooks. But don’t jump the gun and start purchasing all your books from the school bookstore – unless of course you want to throw tons of money down the drain. Instead, download the Chegg app which lets you search and rent any available textbooks…for much cheaper than actually buying the book! Plus, when you’re done with the book, you can put it back up on Chegg and rent it out to another lucky student.
Most universities are starting to become mobile friendly and have created their own apps providing easy and centralized access to things such as school email, student records, grades, campus information, etc.
Budgeting Apps For College Students
Make paying rent, splitting tabs, and reminding your friends they owe you $$ from the bet you won last weekend a breeze with the Circle app. Just link it to your debit OR credit card and instantly life is so much easier.
Different college students have vastly different budgets for their lives, and not a lot of students really know how to handle their money well. Mint is an amazing user-friendly budgeting tool that uses Intuit software and connects to your bank account to closely monitor your spending habits, allowing you to create personalized budgets so you can be smart about your money. You don’t even have to be into finance – it just gets you to start thinking about where your money goes and how you can be more of a responsible spender. There’s an online and mobile version. You don’t have to do a lot of work or tracking, either, because when you create a budget, you can see how much you’ve spent on, say, your allotted grocery amount for the month, and it’ll even text/email you when you’ve gone over your limit!
Not enough college campuses seem to have gotten the hang of this magical tool which helps you pay back your friends whenever, for literally whatever. The gist of Venmo, for those who don’t know, is that you can pay or request money from your friends at any time, and link it to your bank account. So whether it’s for the ride home last Friday night, splitting rent between roommates, or getting lunch; you never again have to worry about how you’ll pay someone back or that you’re footing the bill, because Venmo makes it incredibly easy to handle splitting money for the things you love doing. A little too easy, if I might add. It’s almost like you’re not spending money at all, so be careful! Another plus – Venmo is also very secure and has exceptional customer service.
This app is only available in a few major cities, like Austin, Atlanta, and Chicago for now. But if your school happens to be in any of those types of places, download this now. It’s a really cute app that “scouts” for deals and discounts in your city for smaller (and usually trendy) stores, boutiques, events, and restaurants. A lot of things are 50-100% off regular price, and is an awesome way to explore hidden gems in your city. How is it different from Groupon? It’s a lot more specific to supporting the small business owners in your area, and seems to be more geared towards services like food and coffee. It also has a really eye-catching interface and entertaining reviews and fun facts.
Health and Fitness Apps For College Students
If you don’t want all of your resolutions to fade away into the abyss like in previous years, get an app for that! Productive is a habit tracker that lets you input routine activities you want to start or continue doing. It’s not so much long term goals as it is little habits, like meditating for 30 minutes a day, taking a 20 minute walk in the middle of the afternoon, or taking that dreaded shot of apple cider vinegar before breakfast every morning.
“Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything.”
Working out relieves all the stress that college puts you under. With the combined chaos of classes, homework, clubs, activities, etc; it can often be hard to find time to make it to the gym (unless you are an organized person who follows her schedule to the dot…). Nike Training Club offers equipment-less exercises and timed circuits that you can do right in your dorm room, no gym required. Sorry to break it to you, but now you’ve got NO excuses to not get your butt into gear.
It’s the new year, so your campus gym is probably flooded with people anyway, (that is until the middle of February when everyone realizes Netflix > gym) but despite this, if you’re one to avoid the gym at all costs, you might want to check out Sworkit. Similar to the Nike app, this is just another option for working out, outside of the gym. It’s always nice to switch up your workout routine, which is why it might be beneficial to have two fitness apps (gasp!). With all these apps, it’s getting harder and harder to come up with excuses for being lazy!
Google Play Music (formerly Songza) has mood/activity geared playlists; a great way to set the tone for your workout.
Creativity Apps For College Students
These days, anyone with an Instagram account can call themselves an amateur photographer of sorts. But with these two apps, you can make even more beautiful pictures to put on your blog or social media accounts. Afterlight is an app that has lots of shapes, formatting, and filters to make your pictures really beautiful. And Over is an amazing app that lets you put text on your pictures. What makes these two photo apps stand out specifically are that they are super sleek and classy, so really anything that you do to your photos with both of them makes your pictures 10 times better looking! Of course, these are more for your average Facebook/Insta use and not for professional photography persay, but anyone of any expertise can use them to make pictures really nice. You won’t be able to stop editing!
Inspirational quotes to get you through the day? Check. Quick snack ideas? Check. Cute DIY craft ideas? Check. A must have app!
Just Because Apps
Have a bad habit of texting he-who-should-not-be-named after a night of demolishing jungle juice? Drunk mode allows you to block your phone’s ability to contact certain people, unless you can answer a math problem.
Circle of 6 will message six trusted contacts (whom you choose) whenever you find yourself in a tricky situation; sending your GPS location, or even directly call emergency hotlines.
I guess these days you can get anything delivered instantly. There are so many apps for college students that depend on the existence of the hungry college student’s inelastic food needs. Here’s one that combines Uber and Grubhub to deliver not only food, but groceries as well, and is available in a lot of major cities.
Let’s face it, when you graduate into the real world, you’re not going to have all your friends living within a mile radius for you to hang out, party, and go to football games with. So realistically, if you are new to a city, or even just interning for a couple of months somewhere, it helps to join a group who has similar interests or backgrounds. And that may sound terrifying, or Tinder-esque, but the whole point is to find an entire group of people to hang out with and get to know. So maybe take a buddy, or ask around about activities, but give it a try so you’ll get used to your new home.
While you’re using all of these platforms to help you in your day-to-day activities, you should also take a second to appreciate how exciting it is to be in a time where every small, seemingly insignificant need is being met by pretty normal people with extraordinary talents. Won’t it be cool to tell your grandkids that you were around when Uber came out and changed transportation forever, or that your phone began telling you how healthy you are? Even as a person who’s pretty resistant to technology, I have to admit there are some apps for college students that I just can’t imagine my college life without.
*Article contributors: Anu Sekar, Deborah Rankin and Sereen Hamawi
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