Ruin the Curve with These Brilliant Apps for Students

Some people have historically had a difficult time in school. Some are bad at taking notes. Others have a hard time retaining information. Studying can be an hour-long endeavor for one student and a days’ long process for another. Nowadays, being successful in class may only be a matter of equipping yourself with the right tools – in this case, apps. Whether you’re a full-time student at a University or a single parent taking online classes after the kids go to bed, you can jump to the head of the class with these fantastic apps.

Quizlet

Quizlet is the ultimate flashcard app. It allows you to make customized digital flashcards to help you study. Memorize definitions, learn a new language, and quiz yourself. Quizlet has a library of ready-made flashcards and built-in games for you to test your knowledge. Don’t worry about running out of physical flashcards or carrying around a giant box whenever you need to study. Quizlet puts it all right on your phone.

Blackboard

If you’re a student today, chances are you already know about Blackboard. This app lets you stay up to date on all the latest information regarding your coursework. Get reminders for homework, check to see when’s your next exam, and see your current grade. Blackboard makes sure you won’t miss a thing.

Flipgrid

If Blackboard lets you communicate with your teacher, Flipgrid lets you connect with your classmates. Create a topic and invite others to join in on the discussion. You can share notes, videos, sources, and topics. How are your classmates studying? What helpful tools have they found? Pool your resources with Flipgrid.

Anki

Here’s another flashcard app. Similar to Quizlet, Anki allows you to create your own notes to study and quiz yourself. While it may not be as streamlined and simple to use as Quizlet, its open platform allows you to make a flashcard with virtually any kind of file. If you are using unique video files or clunky images, Anki works where Quizlet won’t.

Google Drive – Cloud Storage

Google might get overlooked as a good tool for students because it is so commonplace, but that is a mistake. Google Drive’s cloud storage is the best way to neatly organize files and folders between all your classes and share things with your classmates. If you are working on a group project or studying on-the-go, Google Drive is your best friend.

Google Docs

What are you using to write your papers, and why isn’t it Google Docs? It has all the native features that Microsoft Word has, like templates, fonts, header, and footer adjustments. It’s also easy to import images. But the best part: It automatically saves to the cloud—no more worrying about when you last saved – or where you saved it to. Google Docs picks up where you left off, whether on your phone, laptop, or library computer.

Khan Academy

Study with the best of ‘em with Khan Academy. Sign up for a free account and get access to an enormous library of informative videos and courses. You can learn thousands of different skills. Save videos to your account for offline viewing. Khan Academy is a non-profit that offers online classes and certificates to learn at your own pace.

Grammarly

All the hours you spent in elementary school learning about grammar are now officially a complete waste of time. Grammarly is an overlay that you can download to your smartphone and laptop to correct your grammar in real-time. It alerts you if you used the wrong ‘your’ or if you went a little comma heavy. It’s like a spell check on steroids. More than that: it tells you if your sentences are too wordy and can offer suggestions to make them easier to read.

Scanner Pro

Like Google Drive, Scanner Pro is a worldly app turned deadly weapon in a student’s hands. While most of the education world has turned digital, there will always be some physical material that you use. Whether it’s a study guide, a syllabus, business card, or handwritten notes, Scanner Pro can convert them into a PDF. Using your smartphone’s camera, take a picture of the document, and BOOM, it’s stored as a convenient PDF in your phone.

Chegg

Textbooks can easily be the most expensive part of your student experience – even more than the classes. Chegg can help you with that by offering free (or at least very cheap) the digital rental of thousands of textbooks. No more buying a used textbook for $300 from the school store and selling it back at the end of the semester for $20. Chegg’s goal is to make higher education attainable for everyone.

BONUS: Easybib.com

Not quite an app, Easybib.com is a great resource to help with your bibliographies, everyone’s least favorite part of an assignment. Easybib is a virtual guide to help organize and cite all the sources you used when completing an assignment. It also allows you to scan your project for plagiarism, so you won’t get points deducted needlessly from your work.