Apps and Extensions You actually Need for University/College
Author’s note: I am Canadian and therefore the terms “university” and “college” are not synonymous like in countries such as the USA. College means more community college and is cheaper but offers a wide (sometimes much wider) range of opportunities. That being said, these tools are helpful for students of all levels - from elementary and high school to PhD students!
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There are so many videos, blog posts, tiktoks and everything in between talking about different apps and chrome extensions that are supposed to help you but are either focused on aesthetics, are paid, or are only available, more often than not on Macbooks and not on Windows.
I have put together the ultimate masterlist of apps and chrome extensions that work for BOTH Macbooks AND Windows laptops, PCs, the like and have divided them into categories. there are a few that may require you to pay - I will let you know but I promise, usually it's a lifetime payment and it's definitely worth the investment. The categories are
Note-taking | Reading | Study Accountability | Scheduling | Citations/Research Organization
Note Taking
Notion
Everyone is talking about Notion. Everyone is also selling their templates. I have a few in my Gumroad store as well. There are free ones too.
Anyways, Notion is taking over the online study community - what's the hype? Well, there are a few pros and cons, let's get to it
Cons:
Learning curve
Slow and clunky sometimes
No offline mode
No cloud to store things
Exporting to PDF is clunky
Seems like the focus is more on AI and recent trends than functionality, ease of access, a cloud backup and offline mode
Limited fonts
Limited layout
No spell checker
Customer support is less than stellar (according to some on the r/notion subreddit)
Pros:
Everything in one space
Free/Free with student e-mail
Lots of tutorials online
Big community
Minimalistic + aesthetic = less distractions
Collaborate
Create websites
Share templates
Don’t know where to start? Check out the templates below for pre-built Notion Templats!
Obsidian
This is another note-taking app that seems to be slowly over-taking the Notion hype but is more on the quiet side of the hype. In fact, I typed this whole article up on Obsidian because it runs much faster than Notion on my laptop
Cons:
Slight learning curve (at least for me)
Syncing is $8/month
Pros:
Free
Faster
Markdown - easier to export
Connections, hashtags, organize folders and such
Add-ons that can help with making your notes more aesthetically pleasing
Saves onto your laptop
Offline mode
Spelling checker!!!!
My Workspace
I’m still trying to figure the app out but I really like how seamless importing PDFs and EPUBs is and you can split the app down without opening another window like in Notion
Reading
Now, if you're like me and don't feel like lugging around your textbooks or you read a lot of articles, you need software to be able to view the textbooks and articles on your computer. I also like to put some textbooks or books we read in class (Odyssey, Iliad) on my Kobo so my eyes don't strain staring at a pixelated screen for so long.
Adobe Acrobat PDF
Honestly, unless you need the signature/text editing functionalities, the free version of Adobe Acrobat PDF is perfectly fine. Also, check with your school - maybe they give you a free version with your student e-mail
Adobe Digital Editions 4.5
This is the app I use to import books onto my Kobo. I would not recommend using it on your laptop because it's slow and has it's pros and cons but frankly, it does the job of keeping all my books in one dedicated application and I can put it on my Kobo easily. This one is free.
Scheduling
Google Calendar
There's only one app you truly need: Google Calendar.
What I did is that I colour-coded every person in my family and we have a family google calendar where everyone adds all their events - for me, it's work times and classes, mum has her market events, siblings have playdates, field trips, doctor appointments and the like and frankly, it's worked out really well.
Study Accountability
Honestly, being stuck at home for two years taught me a lot - I need a body double. So, I turned to three things: two websites and an app.
Study with Me on Youtube
Study with me's are great because some have background noise in real time so you can just tune out and listen to the background noise and feel like someone is there, working with you. I have a few on my channel, Alexandrian Archives, so do check those out
Lifeat.io
Lifeat.io is a free website that has different workspaces and features that will help you if you're stuck at home while doing your homework or work and your family is loud and is playing the Barbie Girl song extremely loudly. Or maybe that's a my family thing.
Yeolpumta
Yeolpumta is an app that you may have seen a lot of Korean studygrams posting screenshots of. It’s like Forest except it’s free completely and you can also create study groups and join other study groups. You can track the times you worked on specific work for specific classes and you’re not able to use the phone without pausing your time.
Organizing tabs/research/citations
MyBib
Mybib is a free citation creator chrome extension that, for smaller papers, as a humanities student, I *swear* by. It's super easy to use and to install and you can choose the exact type of citation style you want.
Mendeley
Mendeley is another citation tool that functions as a chrome extension and is an application you install onto your computer. I don't use this as often unless it's for longer, more thoroughly researched papers and it is frankly a god-send. You can organize all your citations and edit it in app and it's fantastic and I never hear anyone talk about it. Like at all. Onetab
OneTab
OneTab is something I absolutely swear by because I have a bad habit of opening 5 million tabs for a research paper and then I close it all and the next day I have to go through my History to get back the specific ones. You can also organize your tabs via categories and select specific tabs to send to OneTab.
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Defeating the Paywall
As university students, none of us have the money, or the will, to pay 35$ for that one research paper in which you will use like a sentence or two in your paper. Academia should be all access so here are two ways to defeat the paywall
Sci-Hub
If it's an article from, say, JSTOR and your uni doesn't give you access and the librarians can't get it either (always talk to your librarians if you can!) you can use sci-hub.se
This is a fantastic tool - you just either put in the URL of the website where the article is OR you find the doi link which is usually instantly found, paste it in and voila.
Wayback Machine
Wayback machine is something I don't use often for school but I use for my bookstagram and my own research - if the website, say a news article, has a paywall, you can put in the link into the wayback machine and usually, you can find a version of the article that's not behind the paywall.
Flashcards
Anki
Anki is an app that you may see being popular for med students but it's also a fantastic app for humanities students as well as those that are learning languages.
Memorize!
If you don't have enough storage for Anki or your computer is too slow or whatever, you can install the Memorize! extension - this one can be set at a specific interval (10, 15, 20 min, etc.) and a small window will pop up in which you have to type the answer. I use this for vocab practice!
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Dictionary & Grammar
Even if you have a firm knowledge and understanding of the English language or, if you're like me and speak several, you're gonna need a) dictionaries and b) an editing software. Grammar editing software.
As someone that speaks three languages - stop using google translate. PLEASE
WordReference
When I tell you guys my grade 4 French Immersion teacher gave us a lecture about using Google translate, she told us about word reference and I only use google translate in certain situations. Sure, it doesn't translate full phrases like Google Translate does BUT it has a function where you can see the verb conjugations and therefore you *learn* how to properly conjugate the verbs
Grammarly
Grammarly, while sometimes controversial, is actually a very good tool - when used properly. I have the free version but if you're willing, put in the money for the paid version and trust me. It does help.
Antidote
I'm not sure if English speakers know this one but my French teachers swore up and down about this one application and lemme tell you, they were MAD when the school got rid of it. Antidote works for either French or English or you can get the package that includes both languages. It doesn't exactly give you the correct answer but suggests it and you choose yourself whether or not you're going to change it.
Conclusion:
Well, I hoped you enjoyed this rather intensive list, I hope this helps all new and old students - whether you're in high school, university or college. Let me know which ones you use and which ones you're planning on using!
Love,
Mila
