Whether this is your first experience of being a student, or you’re coming back to study at night while working by day, there’s no denying that college life can be demanding. Fortunately, there are plenty of free apps that will help you to keep yourself organised and on top of things. Whether it’s recipe planning, communicating with classmates, stress management or managing your notes, our top ten free apps for students have got you covered. Make sure you share your favourites in the comments!
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UNiDAYS provides students with discounts for a huge amount of brands including Asos, Topman and H&M. It’s cool and colourful and has a nifty blog for any and all fashionistas to digest. The app generates a unique code which you enter at checkout, to receive your discount. Check out this blog post for more great student discounts!
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My Fitness Pal is great to keep on track with your exercise and nutrition - two things that can fall by the wayside at college, but make an important contribution to your health, happiness and overall success as a student. The app helps you to record your food and exercise activities, work out your calorie intake and even has a barcode scanner function, so you can add products to its database of food and drinks.
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Transport for Ireland is the website of the National Transport Authority. They have several useful apps for both iPhone and android, but our favourite is the Journey Planner App. It provides planning and timetable info on trains, buses, trams, ferry and taxi services, with door-to-door route plans covering all of Ireland. Pretty handy.
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Wally is a personal financial planning tool that will allow you to figure out where all your money is going, and to do something about it. Use the app (free on iOS and Android) to set up your budget, record what you spend and access detailed infographics of your spending. Change your currency to euro in the settings and away you go.
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WhatsApp might already be well known to you as a way of staying connected with your family and friends – but it’s also a great way to keep in touch with your fellow students. Set up a WhatsApp group for your class and share notes, observations, queries and news – all for free!
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Splitwise is so handy if you'll be moving out into shared accommodation. This free tool allows flatmates to track bills and other shared expenses, so that everyone gets paid back. It’s free for iPhone and Android and takes the hassle out of sharing expenses by doing the maths for you, telling you exactly who owes what. It can also send you email reminders when the rent is due.
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Calm can help you to offset some of the stresses of student life. This simple mindfulness app can help you to meditate, sleep, relax and generally improve your mood. With calming nature scenes, music tracks and guided meditations, this is a great one to have on hand for when you need some clarity and peace of mind. (Need more stress management tips? We've got you covered!)
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Dropbox allows college students to upload and store notes and coursework in the cloud, automatically sync documents, photos and videos to all devices and share them easily. It can also integrate with other higher education tools like Turnitin and Moodle.
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Yummly is a free recipe discovery app that draws from thousands of the world’s top recipe sites and blogs. Save and organise your favourite recipes, get recommendations based on your taste, filter recipes by the ingredients you already have or build shopping lists for the week ahead, based on the recipes you choose.
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LinkedIn is a handy way of keeping track of your new skills and accomplishments as they actually occur. Download the app and use it during your time in college to continually build and tweak your CV, as well as developing your network of contacts. Your college Careers Service will be able to advise you on your LinkedIn profile, or you could check out our blog post here.
