The picture that comes into our head when we hear the word college is of an easy fun-filled ride. After 12 years of school and everyday homework, the time finally arrives when we enter a new phase. A completely new life of new friends and laid-back lifestyle awaits you.
College sure is exciting, isn’t it?
While you are going to have the say-so of your lives, it will be good for your future that you adapt to the changes soon and pay equal attention to both study in morning and party at night parts of you. Now with your parents not guiding your way, it is time you become independent. Worried how you’ll manage the fun and serious parts together? Don’t worry, you are not alone.
To help students like you in transitioning from young to adult life, while giving you the best of both worlds, a number of technological devices are there in market. With time, because of their immense help, they have become necessary have for college students.
Let’s delve more into these devices.
- Smartphones
There is another aspect of technology and college life of students, which is Smartphone.
21st Century is the era of smart phones. Today everything from Google, YouTube to Shopping options is now at your fingertips. The popularity and affordability brings a smart phone in everyone’s hands.
For a college student, a smart phone can prove to be a big asset. It can make their life much easier and sorted.
Here are some of the basic apps that are proven to make life easier for the college-going crowd.
- Evernote
It allows you to manage: maintain, update, and delete notes in real time. Along with notes management, the app allows you to gather everything from all over the internet and clip it.
Another added features that makes it special is presentation. Through this feature, you no more have to worry about making slides. Evernote presents your document in a screen friendly layout.
- Recorder
There are apps in online market, which allows you to record audio and videos. These comes in handy when you do not feel like jotting down notes. Recording professor’s lecture can also be of immense help in case you were absent or forgot to note an important point.
- Dropbox
This application lets you save all your work from various devices in one place. You can then access those files from every corners of the world.
- Language translator
Language translator is the one app, which comes in handy if you are living a foreign country or nation. Even if you live in a country that has multiple language-speaking nationals, there are apps in this category that offers specific regional language support.
- E-Reader
We all know how heavy textbooks can be difficult to carry around all day. Plus there are high chances that you will forget the book at home, and then there is all the environment issues.
So why waste paper when you can get study material right on an electronic reader? To make it easy for both students and environment, it has become necessary to have an E-reader. They let you have all the files in one place, making it easy to access.
Other than making your documents ready on the go, there are various other advantages of E-readers like Kindle. Some of them are:
- Portability : Being very light and smaller as compared to a laptop, it easily fits bags of any size.
- Capacity : It can hold more than 300 books, without taking much space.
- Know where you stopped last : An E-reader memorizes the page number you were on and opens on that.
- Free : There are around a million options in the free section. You no more have to spend a hefty amount on buying international writers.
- Laptop
Even though you must be using laptops since school time, having one in college is no more an option.
For college students, it is as important as textbooks and pens. From doing school assignments to various extracurricular activities, such as video chatting with parents, gaming, social networking, practicing complicated software like Corel Draw, a laptop is needed for every little thing.
If you are short on money, go for the one with basic configuration that meets the top requirements of college life. For e.g. Chromebook helps when you only need to surf the internet, write on Google docs and view/ send emails. But it does not work if you want to do photo or video editing.
Still confused about the best laptop to buy? Let your course decide.
If you are studying to become an architect, buy a laptop that supports various architectural design software. Or if you are an aspiring writer, go for a laptop with high storage space, in order to save drafts and various editing software.
- External hard drive
Does the thought of losing all your life’s work along with term end assignment sends chill down your spine? A large number of people around the globe fear the same thing. But as a student,
And, you cannot just rely on Ctrl+S when it comes to your important files.
An external hard drive comes as a savior of your documents. Saving all the work on the drive on a weekly basis will give you a peace of mind. Considering the quantity of assignments, it is necessary have for college students. Along with preventing the work from getting lost, there are various other uses of an external hard drive.
- The speed of transferring files is much higher when using hard drive
- Size of hard drive makes it very portable
- The automatic connectivity makes it extremely easy to use an external hard drive.
Buying the right hard drive is equally important. While all the external hard drives in the market might function in the same way, it does not mean you buy purchase one without consideration.
The first step in the purchase decision is figuring out for what you are going to use it. Once you have that sorted, narrow down the other relevant factors like space, security, size, etc.
- USB Flash Drive
Do you remember the square shaped black floppy disk and its purpose? USB Flash Drive is used for the same thing. They can be used to transfer data from one computer to another and to keep a backup of file.
A USB Flash Drive makes it easier for you to carry your assignment and other important documents in your pocket.
Having and using these devices and apps effectively will make it easier for you to sail through the best graduate colleges of the world effortlessly. But make sure you get a hang of them before your first day in college.
Author Bio:
Tripti Rai writes on the behalf of Shiksha.com, she advises students on right career choices, exam advices, educational institutions etc. Along with education, she also likes to talk about real estate whenever she gets a chance.
Read this Article in: Français (French)
