College can get a bit tough sometimes. Exam preparations, schoolwork, and internships leave you with so little time for yourself. But thank Lord the Internet exists, because here are the best online tools and resources for college students that will make your college life easier.
Whether you’re about to start college or even if you’re finished with it and working in the real world, these online tools are super helpful for you! They have multiple utilities and purposes: organization, learning new skills, helping you to write your school essays…
Related post: 7 Ways To Make Money As A College Student
This is something a lot of people don’t know but, as a student, you’re eligible for a lot of discounts. This means you don’t have to pay full price for a lot of stuff! Honestly, I try to take advantage of my student discounts as much as I can while I’m in college, this is why I can assure you that I use or have used all the resources and tools from the list I’m recommending to you.
If you want to make money in college or simply save some money for an extra latte, these resources are for you!
7 Essential Resources for College Students
Grammarly
Writing school essays can become the worst nightmare when you have proofread the whole text looking for any mistakes. Luckily, Grammarly does the dirty work for you. The free version of Grammarly is an incredible proofreading machine and will help you catch any misspelled words, grammatical errors, awkward phrasing, and punctuation mistakes. It will even warn if you’re repeating a certain word too many times.
You can copy and paste documents into an online spellchecker for a free check, or you can also install it into your Google Chrome browser (highly recommended). Installing it in your browser will prevent you from making any awkward spelling mistakes when you email your professors.
Being a free app, it does a great job and is much more helpful than your average online spellchecker. I highly recommend it to you if your college degree requires a lot of writing but you don’t have the time to be constantly looking for typos. Get Grammarly here to speed up your work and save some valuable time.
Evernote
If you’re in college, you’ll probably need to take lots of notes. Well, this app’s name speaks for itself and luckily for you and me, it’s free.
Evernote is an online tool (also available as an app) that allows you to store all your notes in one place. This is amazing for a lot of reasons: organized life, time management, teamwork, you name it. However, notes are just a part of it. You can also set reminders, make to-do lists, take recordings, snap photos, save links, handwrite or even make doodles. All in one place! Everything searchable, so you never lose anything.
Evernote is completely free for a basic membership, but if you want to sync your devices, it’s worth paying $2-5 extra per month for a premium membership. Synchronization between devices will allow you to work on your projects on the go from your tablet or smartphone.
I know, I know. Apple Music isn’t exactly a study tool. But I still think the Apple Music student discount is something all students should take advantage of. A standard subscription costs $9.99 per month, but if you’re a student you can subscribe for $4.99. The student price is super reasonable and you get unlimited listening to 50 million songs. You can also create playlists and download the songs directly to your phone, so you can play them offline and save data.
At just $4.99 a month, it’s essentially the price of your last Starbucks latte. So, as you can see, there’s no excuse. You can get the Apple Music student discount here.
Trello is the free online planner that every student needs in their lives. This is an amazing tool to manage all your deadlines, projects and ideas in one place. One of its features is that you can add additional users for group projects, clubs or even friends.
I’ve been using Trello for my college assignments and my blog, and it has been a complete game-changer. Honestly, I’m the most disorganized person I know and this app has saved my life so many times. If like me, you’re a mess with deadlines I recommend this to you.
They also have a gold membership with more features in case you want to make the most out of it. It’s just $5 and more affordable than buying a regular paper planner that will probably end up in some random drawer.
Your Own Self-Hosted Website
A self-hosted website is also a great tool to share your work or introduce yourself to potential clients. We live in a digital age where it’s so important to build a profile online. It doesn’t matter if you use it to upload photos of your trips or as a source of extra income, you need one. Starting a blog will make you stand out in future job interviews and as a college student.
Check my step-by-step guide for starting a blog for less than $5 with BlueHost and WordPress.
Honestly, it’s so easy and it just takes a few minutes. I use my blog to make money online and grow my portfolio.
From there, you can turn it into whatever you prefer: a travel blog, a photography site or a digital portfolio!
Related post: How To Make Money Blogging
This isn’t exactly an educational resource, but some aspects of it can be really useful if you’re a student. I signed up for Amazon Prime Student when I was in my freshman year of college and I have been using it for the last three years (which is basically all my college journey). What I love about Amazon is that you can buy most books and school stationery for a lot less money than in regular stores.
Did you know that you get it free for six months as a student? That’s right, you pay nothing for the first 6 months using it!
Amazon Prime Student gives you access to the privilege of 2-day-shipping, which comes in handy in emergencies or last-minute buys. But you also get a ton of other cool features like Amazon Prime TV and Movie streaming service and Amazon Music. This is perfect for when you need a break from schoolwork but you don’t want to spend extra money going out.
You also get access to Prime Reading which is a virtual library with a lot of titles you can download at no extra cost. This is so helpful when you can’t find a book in your school library. And even though this looks like an ad, I swear this is not sponsored. Amazon Prime is amazing and helpful in a lot of ways, and 100% worth the money. You can learn more about Amazon Prime Student here.
Do you want to learn a new skill but don’t want to pay $100 for a course? Do you have a hard class you need some help with? You should definitely check Coursera.
Coursera is a collection of free online courses developed by leading universities. After taking a course, you get an official certificate that may add up to a degree, which is a nice bonus to add to the knowledge earned.
Each course features interactive videos, quizzes, and projects to make the learning experience more dynamic and fun. There is also a social platform where you can connect with other students and share your views or participate in debates based on the course you are taking.
Duolingo is like the Instagram of language learning apps. For most college students, a foreign language is a necessary credit to graduate. With this app you can study or learn any language you choose for free, forever!
The best thing about Duolingo is you can install the app on your smartphone and practice your new language skills while you wait for the bus or for the coffee you just ordered. Learning with this app is like playing a game: you earn points for correct answers and every time you level up. You won’t even notice you’re studying.
It’s a great way to stay motivated and a cool alternative to that two-hour weekly Italian class you don’t have time for! Learning a language on Duolingo is completely free, but you can remove de ads with Duolingo Plus for $6.99.
The Best Resources for College Students
Whether you’re a college student or a grad, I honestly encourage you to try any of these tools. I have personally used all of them in my journey as a college student, but I will probably keep using them after I graduate.
As students, we do need a bit of help sometimes, and there’s nothing wrong with using an app or service to stay organized and make our lives easier!
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This post contains affiliate links, which means that I may receive a small commission if you purchase through them (at no extra cost for you). I only recommend products and services that I have personally used and love. You can read about my disclosure here.
Hey, nice article I am more of a OneNote type of a guy but I guess EverNote is cool as well. I am fluent in Mandarin and I never really used any language app, only dictionary and that was it. Using an app would probably have made learning Mandarin a lot easier.
Yes! It definitely would have helped! Thank you so much for reading 🙂