college – A Figment's Guide

Organize Your Life | Top 10 Apps For College Students

February 23, 2018

10 of The Best Apps For College Students : Organization & Studying

With all of the improvements in technology over the past years, school and learning seems much more readily accessible. So, if you’re ready to improve your study habits or maybe get a bit more organized just keep reading to learn about the apps that can get you there!

1| Khan Academy

This is honestly one of my favorite apps/websites to use while studying. They have so many well put together videos on hundreds of topics! Their creators make the concepts simple and easy to learn. The topics are divided into sections with videos as well as a short quiz for each section. This helps really solidify in the information in your mind. Next time you have a test, check this out! They also have course sets for exams such as the SAT, MCAT and NCLEX which covers topics you can expect to see on those tests. This is just overall a great app for learning.

2| Duolingo

How many of us make a New Year’s resolution to learn a new language? Now you can keep it by learning a new language using this app! I have been using this to brush up on my Spanish as well as exploring the idea of learning French! The app is designed for more of a beginner level language course so it’s pretty ideal when you are just starting out a new language. The courses incorporates writing, reading, and listening questions. You also have the option to do speaking exercises as well.

3| StudyBlue/Quizlet

quizlet

I have a love/hate relationship with flashcards. They are really useful for studying but sometimes I don’t find it worth the hand cramp to write them all out. Luckily, I stumbled upon both of these apps which allow you to make flashcards on your phone! And if you want to get even lazier, you can search your class or topic to see if other people have already made similar flashcards. (haha studying of the future, am I right?) So, after you’ve gone through the flashcards a couple times you may want to quiz yourself a different way. Lucky for you, on Quizlet you can generate a quiz from your flashcard set and format questions as multiple choice or fill in the blank. If you like flashcards or need a new way to study, this app could really help you out!

4| Hoopla

hoopla

College students are usually so busy they forget to keep up on their reading! (people still read…right?) This app connects you to your local library where you can check out ebooks, audio-books and even movies! I personally use this app a lot because I may not have time to sit there and read a book but I can turn on an audio-book and listen while I clean, do laundry, or whatever other nonsense around the house. It could also be used for the times when you have to do a book report so instead of reading the book, you can have someone read it for you (well..to you haha).

5| Chegg

chegg

College textbooks are expensive and no one has that kind of money (or wants to spend it) on boring books you’ll probably only need for a few months. I found out about Chegg from another blog somewhere, ironically, when I first started college and it has been a really big help! You can buy OR rent textbooks and some textbooks are also available as an ebook. When you rent the book they make it super easy to return by printing the prepaid shipping label and stuffing those books right back in the box they came from. Chegg can be more than textbooks though. They also offer study help and even have textbook solutions for a lot of different books. (Chegg is awesome – I approve) And if you’re not already sold, they also send a free gift with your textbooks!

6| Groupme

groupme

This is a great app to use to keep you in touch with classmates for group projects and study help. It acts as a group text message so you can set up a group for your class and add your classmates/group partners. I really like this app because it connects you together even when you are out of service range by sending the messages through wifi. Keep your group connected!

7| myHomework – Student Planner

myhomework

This is basically your student planner, on your phone. You add in your class schedule to get started organizing your semester. The app allows you to color code the assignments for each class and set due dates. You can also categorize the assignments by type such as an essay, or presentation. The app will notify you of upcoming due dates and you can also set a timer to remind you about an assignment (so you know when to start working on it). Cross of assignments that you finish so you can track your progress! As if this app wasn’t amazing enough, this can still be used when you are not connected to wifi! (Seriously…get this app)

8| BlackBoard

blackboard

So this app is really only useful if your school uses this program. It connects you to your classes and allows you to see your grades in that course (…depending on if your teacher decides to use this to post grades and keeps up with it). Teachers can post course information such as assignment rubrics and the syllabus. Overall, it’s a really great interactive app to help you keep up with your courses.

9| Evernote

I think we have almost moved pass the days of taking lecture notes using pen and paper. Using Evernote, you can take classnotes and organize files into a notebook layout. If you’re like me and still like to take notes by hand (we are a rare species) you are able to get the best of both worlds with this one! Instead of typing up your notes you can take a picture or scan your handwritten notes and add them to your notebook on the app! This keeps all of your notes together and organized in one place. This app can also be used to make to-do lists or shopping lists if that’s your thing. Lastly, you are able to share your journal with others OR collaborate as a group to create a class journal. Pretty great, huh?

10| Mint

mint

Although some of us may not feel like it, we are adults now, and being an adult brings many more responsibilities we have to keep track of. An important one of these is keeping track of our finances (adult word for “money”) and budgeting. Apps like Mint make this easy for us! Mint allows you to stay on top of any bills that you have as well as keeps track of where your credit score stands. The feature I like about Mint is that it shows you a breakdown of your spending habits (spending $20 on Starbucks coffee mostly). This is very useful information because it allows you to see where your money goes/why it’s always gone and you can work from there to create a budget for yourself. Get out there and start adulting!!

Guys, I really hope you found these apps useful and maybe even give some of them a try! They are all free apps (good for your budget) and very helpful! We all have a lot on our plates with university courses, work, and trying to somehow maintain a social life. Why not try making things easier?

Be sure to leave a comment if there are any apps YOU use and find really helpful! I am always interested and finding new ones!

Fairwinds!

Three Types of Days

February 21, 2018

There are Three Types of Days –

One of my professors once told me: As we go through life we will experience three different types of days.

Some days will be amazing and we will feel like we are on top of the world, capable of taking on anything. These are the good days.

Other days will be average, run of the mill kind of days. Nothing too exciting but also nothing to really complain about either.

Then we will have days that are horrible. The days we lay in bed wondering, searching for a good enough reason to get up and face the world. These days are what will define us and is ultimately what will bring individuals together.

How you decide to deal with these bad days will define how strong you are. If you are able to overcome and push forward you will gain a sense of accomplishment which will ultimately make you stronger and more equipt to handle the next bad day. There will always be bad days, but remember to keep moving forward because there will also be good days.

Procrastination At It’s Finest

February 20, 2018

An assignment is given to you. You think to yourself, “Today is the day. I’m gonna start to work on this as soon as my foot steps through the door tonight. I will NOT put this off!”. When you get home that night you’re just too tired to even begin to look at the assignment. Meh, you can do it tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes the next day, and the next, and the next until one day you look up at the calendar to see…oh CRAP! The assignment is due tomorrow and you haven’t even attempted to start it! Now, in an anxiety-filled panic you start the project and realize you’ll probably need to chug coffee or whatever source of caffeine you can find in order to pull an all nighter to get this done! (it was a lot longer than you expected) The stress is real. You throw together at least a mediocre version of what you know you COULD have come up with if only you had more time!

Sound familiar?

A topic/concept we are all too familiar with: procrastination. I am probably the Queen of Procrastination but, I have also developed and refined some ways to overcome this. I will now share these tactics so as you feel yourself slipping further and further down into the rabbit hole that is procrastination, you may have a better chance to prevail!

One of the reasons a lot of us tend to procrastinate is usually the size of the project at hand. We just do not like the sound of sitting down to do something that will take us forever to accomplish when there are so many other interesting things that we could be doing with our time. By procrastinating these large projects we tend to make things worse for ourselves as the amount of work increases and the amount of time we have to do them decreases. My solution for this problem is to BREAK UP THE PROJECT. Make yourself a plan by writing out what you will do for this project each day until it is due. Day one could simply be making up a title or choosing a subject for the project. Simple, small tasks are much easier and achievable then trying to get together the whole project at one time. Honestly, our brains are not meant for doing one project with no breaks for extended periods of time. It simply doesn’t work. This is why when you do this you probably find it hard to stay concentrated on the task at hand. Our brain wants a different thing to focus on.

If this doesn’t work, you could try to TRICK YOURSELF into getting the project done on time. “How does one trick themselves?” , you may be asking. Something that I personally like to do is write out all of my assignment’s due dates on my calendar. For bigger projects, I will write the due date as being a day or two before it is actually due. Then when the time comes around, even if I DO procrastinate and do the assignment the night before (I think) it’s due, I still have plenty of time to go back and revise it before the actual due date. Pretty clever, huh?

Hopefully you learned something or at least were entertained for a few minutes from reading this! Feel free to comment the things that you like to do to help overcome procrastination. Together we shall prevail! …but maybe we can start tomorrow.