The Best Apps for Online College Students

From note taking to time management, there’s a dizzying array of apps available for today’s college students—so many that it can often be difficult to weed out the good from the not-so-good.

We’ve gathered the best apps for online college students—who must often balance work and family commitments along with their academics—to help keep them on track and poised for success.

Organization

Being successful in college generally starts with being organized. And being organized often starts with a great to-do list. From grocery lists to class assignments, Wunderlist keeps all of your to-do lists easily accessible and synced across multiple devices. You can create folders, share lists with others, set reminders, create hashtags, write notes, and more. Any.do is a similar task-organizing app also excellent for online college students. The cleanly designed app (which allows users to shake their mobile devices to remove all completed tasks) can even upload files and create subtasks, making it exceptionally well suited for online learning.

Time management

Ever wish you could have your own personal time management coach? iStudiez Pro is the next best thing, allowing online college students to input class schedules, assignments, grades, and more into a built-in planner, then alerting you of upcoming deadlines. When online learning and daily commitments make time especially tight, there are even apps to help you avoid digital distractions. RescueTime tracks time spent on social media platforms, websites, and more, identifying top diversions and creating alerts when users are spending too much time on them. SelfControl goes a step further by blocking certain websites and servers for a certain amount of time by enabling users to put them on a “blacklist.”

Note taking

When it comes to note taking, Evernote continues to be a crowd favorite, making it one of the best apps for college students, online and offline. From voice recordings and class documents to photos and videos, notes are just the beginning of what can be stored—and synced across multiple devices—on this app. Notability is another favorite that’s well suited for online education, as it can incorporate handwriting, audio, pictures, drawings, and typed text into your notes. A variety of font and color options further help lessons come to life.

Works cited

Whether you’re earning your degree online or on campus, all college students know the worst part of a research paper isn’t the research and it isn’t the writing—it’s the bibliography. But two popular apps are here to take the pain away from creating a list of works cited. RefME and EasyBib automatically generate citations in a wide range of citation styles (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.) by simply scanning a publication’s barcode or entering basic information, such as the title. Citations can be stored in the cloud, e-mailed, or copied and pasted, making these apps true time-savers for online learning.

Cloud storage

From group projects to conveniently working on documents remotely and across multiple platforms, cloud storage is key when it comes to being successful in college in the 21st century. Google Drive and Dropbox remain leaders in cloud-based document storage and document sharing as they enable quick, easy access to text-based documents, spreadsheets, videos, photos, presentations, and more across multiple platforms. Sharing documents and real-time editing make collaborative projects with classmates a breeze.

Ready to pursue your online education and put these apps to the test? Discover how Walden University, an accredited online institution, can help you get your bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree online in a convenient, flexible format that fits your schedule and your busy life.

Walden University is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission, www.hlcommission.org.