Free and Insanely Useful Apps You Need to Download for College - CNET
First-year college students are told they need to buy a lot of things before starting college: dorm furnishings, textbooks, laptops and other devices, and so much more. While these things might make the transition to college life a little easier, there are some digital must-haves that don’t typically make your standard college packing list.
Based on my own college experience, and aided by some informal crowdsourcing on Slack, these are the apps that will help you be prepared and successful during the 2023 school year. And in true college fashion, all of them are free to download and will help students save time and money.
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Google Calendar
Or another digital calendar or planner
Having a reliable calendar or planner is an absolute necessity for all college students. There’s always so much happening, especially in the first few weeks of the semester, and you’ll need a way to organize class schedules, due dates, club meetings and other events. After years of using a paper planner, I finally converted to a Google calendar last year and haven’t looked back since. Google Calendar is my preferred program because it’s easy to access from multiple devices, can be color coordinated and it’s simple to use and update.
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Budgeting apps
For managing money
If this is your first time living away from home or managing your own finances, you’ll need a budgeting app to plan your financial decisions. Even after you’ve paid tuition and bought textbooks, there are other expenses you’ll want to plan for. Some banks offer customizable budgeting services but other apps, such as Mint, work for everyone. CNET put together a list of the best budgeting apps for 2023 to help get you started.
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Unidays Student Discount App
For student savings
If there’s one thing all college students can appreciate, it’s a discount. Unidays compiles different deals, promo codes and savings across hundreds of brands online and in-store. The savings are available to anyone with a student email.
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Venmo
For sending and receiving payments
Having a Venmo account is absolutely essential for splitting bills and costs with friends. Especially if you are living off campus, you’ll need a cash-free, secure way to send payments to the people you’re living with. Get an account set up and secured in advance so it’s less of a headache later.
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Without a doubt, Focus mode on iOS 15 has been had the most impact on how I use my phone.
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Pomodoro Focus productivity timer
For better study habits
Making the transition from a high school course load to college requirements can be difficult. Having a digital productivity timer can help students improve studying habits. The Pomodoro Focus Timer for iOS follows the Pomodoro time management method, with 25-minute timers for focused work, followed by a 5-minute break. After four sets, you get a longer break to reset your mental focus. This particular app tracks your study time and offers a variety of white-noise recordings to help keep you focused.
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GroupMe
For class communications
GroupMe is an alternative messaging platform that many college classes use to create group chats. Often at the beginning of the semester, one student will create a chat for the whole class and email a link that will automatically add pre-existing GroupMe users to the chat. It’s a great way to keep up with classmates without having to give out your personal phone number. It also has a helpful mute function for class group chats that can get notification-heavy.
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