If you’re a new college student, get used to juggling a bunch of new responsibilities parents, teachers and others probably used to take care of for you. You control your money and your time, and while that newfound freedom might be thrilling, you’ve also gotta figure out how to use it wisely. Good thing you’ve probably got a powerful little pocket-computer that can help you manage your new adult life. Here are a few apps that’ll help you along the way:
Level Money
One of the biggest challenges that fresh high school grads entering their first year of college face is learning how to balance their budget — because, let’s face it, first-year college students aren’t the best with money management. This app looks at how much you’re spending each month and quickly tells you how much you can safely blow after your essential spending is accounted for. It also keeps track of your transactions and spending habits, predicting your balance for the next month so, like an actual adult, you can start planning things ahead of time.
Argus
“Sun’s out, guns out,” right? With the new school season approaching, maybe you wanna look your absolute best (to impress people you don’t even know, which totally makes sense). Well, this app can help you develop healthier eating habits and exercise routines. Argus is a calorie counter, activity tracker and a pedometer for weight loss all in one app. You can scan barcodes on food items to keep track of your daily calorie count or program in your sleep cycle to figure out how much rest you should be-versus-are getting. The only downside is the price, which, depending on what bells and whistles you want, ranges from $5 to $40.
ATracker
“Time management” is one of those skills that sounds lame but is actually crucial to successfully balancing class, homework, social life, partying, and whatever else people do in college. With ATracker, you can set up your daily tasks and goals and input how much time you suspect you’ll need to complete them. The app gives you a number of ways to figure out exactly how you’re spending your time.
Class Manager
Yes, college is fun, but not so much fun that you’ll want to take longer than four years to complete your degree. And so to finish around the four-year mark, you’ll need to load up on classes — at least some semesters. There’s nothing bad about taking the maximum amount of hours for a semester, but only if you up your organization game. This app helps you manage each class, mapping out how much progress you need to make on a project or homework or paper that’s almost due.
Quizlet
Maybe high school didn’t exactly give you the best study habits. Don’t worry, there are apps for that. Quizlet helps you create quizzes, flashcards, memory games and tests based on the material you input into it, making it a great study tool for language, history and science classes.
Scribd
The most time-consuming part of good paper-writing can be finding and citing your sources. That’s where Scribd comes in. The app puts millions of books, audiobooks, documents, comics and even sheet music at your fingertips, making it an immensely powerful tool for research papers and writing classes.
Freedom
This app allows you to minimize the amount of technological distraction that might be keeping you from finishing your schoolwork. Freedom, ironically enough, blocks websites and phone apps that may be keeping you from your work. You can customize the app to run only during certain windows of time. You can also preset block sessions and let the app give you an alert when it will start and stop blocking your stuff.
BCampus
There’s nothing unique about being a college student stuck in crippling debt. Tuition, fees, rent and, of course, textbooks all add up. Of course, buying used books online is the easiest way to cut down on costs, but what if you realize you need a particular book that very same day? BBCampus helps connect buyers and sellers on campus so you can find what you need locally and quickly. And if no one is selling the textbook you want, you can create a wish list for other users to see just in case it surfaces.
MyFab5
Moving to a new city for college can be difficult. Everything is new to you and you have no clue where anything is. MyFab5 is a restaurant guide and bar locator that helps you find local spots to grab a bite to eat and help you familiarize yourself with your new surroundings.
iMathematics
Math skills — you either have them or you don’t. For those who don’t, you can brush up with this easy-to-use app as you head into those prerequisite science and math courses. iMathmatics allows you to study and review formulas, definitions and theorems, while giving step-by-step exercises to help you better understand how to solve math problems.
BAC Calculator
For those of you who never partied in high school, you probably don’t know your drinking limit. Which is fine — but, if you aren’t careful, it can get you into trouble. Instead of drinking yourself stupid at a party or passing out like a freshman, you can use this BAC Calculator to find out exactly how drunk you are and how long it will take for you to become sober again. That is, if your basic motor skills still work.
