Free apps that make life easier for college students

American educator and programmer David Warlick once stated: “We need technology in every classroom and in the hands of every student and every teacher, because it is the pen and paper of our time and it is the lens through which we we experience much of our world.” Following this successful example of the perfect pairing between technology and education, below are the best applications to help students with the challenges they encounter in their daily student life.

1. To find housing. It is the first challenge that all those who have (or want) to move from their family home to carry out their studies have to face. There are platforms that include verified properties, such as Uniplaces or Spotahome, which allow you to find different types of student accommodation in the main university cities in Europe, such as Porto, Bologna, Frankfurt, Dublin or London, among others.
2. To control expenses. In most cases, in addition to being a student, you have to be a juggler with the economy. To effectively manage personal finances and carry out control over them, there are free applications such as Fintonic or Mint. Allow effective control over accounts, record each expense, in addition to concentrating all financial information in the same place.
3. In order not to be late for class… and at the same time control the quality of sleep. In university life – due to various factors – bedtime can easily get out of control. Sleep Cycle is a smart watch that studies the student’s sleep cycles, making them wake up just at the moment when their sleep is lightest -taking into account the previous configuration that the user has made-, thus achieving greater energy and a better mood to face the day. Another very similar app is Sleepzy. To relieve stress and anxiety, Headspace can be used, which includes meditation routines at the user’s fingertips and pace. And for the laziest, there is Alarmy, an application that will not let the student fall asleep, since it will not stop ringing until he takes a photo of a place in the house that is advisable: the bathroom.
4. To avoid distractions … and thus concentrate to study. Be Focused, only available for the iOS mobile operating system, allows you to organize your work according to the time you are allowed to spend on the task and then show your progress. For Android and very similar to the previous app, Focus To-Do is available.
5. To interact with other students.  Rafael Martínez, CEO of the platform, states: “The goal is to reach all campuses and universities in Spain, so that all students have a common space where they will find useful information about university life”. By registering on it, you can publish public or anonymous content, organize meetups, enjoy exclusive offers or share notes. It has more than 25,000 users. In other words, it is the bulletin board of all life, but in electronic format.
6. To do teamwork. Google Drive is the king when it comes to saving, organizing and sharing a document online and editing it, but there are other tools like Trello, in addition to sharing boards to do group projects, it makes efficient organization of tasks possible. It is syncable with Google Drive. Wunderlist is also very useful as the user can create to-do lists and share them with whoever he wants.
7. To get organized. The life of a student requires planning if success in academic functions is to be achieved. Evernote manages your resources in a single place, including to-do lists as well as a notepad and calendar, among other features. For both students and teachers, there is the My Study Life planner. It is a kind of electronic agenda, which allows classes and schedules in order to carry out an updated control of all pending activities.
8. To reference and make bibliographies. The process of adding the origin and sources of information can become a tedious labor. To lighten it, there are websites that work automatically. One of them is Scribbr, which is also a plagiarism detector, something that comes in handy to avoid unpleasant surprises later. Generates both reference and bibliography. EasyBib automatically generates bibliographic citations just by scanning the publication’s barcode, although you can enter a hand. We do not fail to specify the free Citation Maker app.
9. To improve in languages. According to Infoempleo, one in three job offers requires languages ​​in Spain, which makes them a key element when it comes to finding a job once you finish your studies. Busuu, with 100 million users in 190 countries, allows you to learn up to 12 different languages ​​for free. Acquaintance has acquired Verbling, to add to its features Busuu Live, through which it can conduct video tutorials, which can be seen in its artificial intelligence-based grammar and vocabulary training, multimedia lessons affected by experts and content from publishers such as The New York Times, The Economist or El País.
10. To take notes with less effort. Microsoft’s Office Lens is a pocket scanner. Makes images of whiteboards and documents that are taken using a photo as readable as possible. In addition, convert the documents in the format you want, that is, in a Word, PowerPoint or pdf file. To collect notes digitally, we propose Squid, which converts the tablet or mobile phone into a virtual whiteboard and allows editing on it, as well as other functions such as exporting documents in pdf or jpeg.