7 Apps for Smart College Students

For many students, the word “studying” conjures up images of being buried under a load of books, reading and rereading, trying to study off scribbled notes and last-minute cram sessions.  Technology is often considered the bad guy, distracting students from their hard work and providing procrastination opportunities.

The turth is, however, that several apps are available for the iPhone and Blackberry to help students study smarter rather than harder. These apps make it possible for students to take their studying with them, so they can also enjoy other aspects of college life.

Blackberry Apps

Student Docket

Most students find juggling classes and assignments challenging.  Paper-based organization systems can get messy quickly and are bulky to carry.  Student Docket helps you track your classes and your assignments easily.  You can color-code your assignments, break up large projects into smaller projects, organize to-do lists and schedule study sessions.  The app also lets you import relevant contacts, like members of your study group and your professors.

Lecture Notes

If you need help recording and organizing your notes, this is a must-have app for you.  You can record audio, type in text or write on the touch screen, and the app will file your notes, making them easily searchable and accessible for review at any time.

Digital Flashcards

Kaplan offers a number of different flashcard-style apps to help you study anywhere you go.  The best ones include GRE prep, pre-med terms and foreign language vocabulary.

Student GPA

Are you concerned about your GPA?  It can be a hassle to have to log-in and search for your GPA on your school’s website.  They are often hidden and require clicking through a number of pages; plus, they usually aren’t up to date.  Student GPA will help you track your grades quickly and easily, and will keep a constant running average, so you always know where you stand.

Apps for iPhone

Evernote

Evernote has a number of features to help students organize their notes.  You can record audio notes and snap photo notes, as well as take text notes.  You can search through snapshot notes for specific lines of text.  If you need fast access to your most important notes, they are easily available.  Plus, your notes can be synchronized to your Mac or PC.

myHomework

This app helps you track your classes, tests, assignments, projects and due dates.  The app is simple to use and will help you get and stay organized, so you never miss another assignment.  After entering in your class schedule and inputting your assignments as soon as you receive them, the app tracks your assignments and helps you prioritize by marking them in red as the due date approaches.  Are you a part of a study group?  This app can help you organize work between group members, making it easy to pass assignments and email reminders to other members of the group.

Students majoring in mathematics, chemistry and English also have apps that have been specifically designed for them.  If you are majoring in one of these areas, be sure to download Graphing Calculator, Solutions or Dictionary.com to help you do your best in these classes.

CareerBuilder

This app helpsstudents find jobs once their studying days are nearing to an end.  CareerBuilderoffers this app for students who need to be informed about what jobs are open in their field.  Say you are studying criminal justice. These apps can help you stay on top of the types of jobs available and answer the question, “What Can You Do with a Criminal Justice Degree?”

For additional guidance and tips on study apps and other technical advice for students, please visit Criminal Justice Blog.

A funny thing happens every year around this time. The local gyms which were overrun with New Years Resolution weight loss hopefuls suddenly start to clear out. By March, only the truly committed remain. Many of these people go on to become long term members of the gym and get themselves into great shape. The people who quit are not seen again until the following January.

Goal setting is used by successful people everywhere. From CEO’s to small businesses, and from athletes to bloggers, people who understand how to properly set goals tend to find success far more often than the general population.

Successful goal setting involves far more than simply deciding you want to weigh less or have a more successful business. Goal setting requires specificity, motivation, and a balance between challenge and realism.

Begin with Motivation and Specificity

Whatever it is you wish to achieve, you must be invigorated and motivated by the thought of achieving it. If the end goal does not light a fire under you, it is likely that you will never be motivated enough to achieve it.

Any goal which is set as a New Year’s Resolution is more likely to fail. Why? Because if the goal was so important to you, you wouldn’t have waited until January to start. A truly motivating goal is one which you will wish to begin working on immediately, regardless of arbitrary calendar dates promoted by the media.

Your goal also needs to be specific. Making a statement such as, “I want to lose weight” is not specific. How will you know when you have achieved this goal? When you lose 1 pound? When you lose 30 pounds? “I want to increase sales this year,” is also an improperly set goal. What defines an increase? A 1% or 10% increase in revenue? If sales rise by 2% next week, has your goal been achieved?

An example of a specific goal is, “I will increase my web traffic by 30% to x visitors per month by the end of July 2012.”

Deadlines Help Motivate

Realistic yet challenging deadlines are integral to keeping you motivated. Make the deadline unrealistic, and you are setting yourself up for failure. Make it too easy, and the goal won’t be worth achieving.

Find a balance between realism and challenge. For instance, it is certainly possible to lose 1.5 pounds of fat per week over a period of 12 weeks. It won’t be easy. It will require consistent exercise and adherence to a quality diet, and will demand personal sacrifice. Losing 18 pounds of fat in 12 weeks is challenging, yet achievable. Losing 50 pounds of fat in 12 weeks is unrealistic and probably unhealthy. Losing 4 pounds in 12 weeks is too easy and will hardly be noticeable.

State exactly what it is you plan to achieve, and set an exact date as a deadline for achieving it.

Up the Ante with Social Networking

Having brainstormed a meaningful and specific goal, it is time to turn to people close to you for outside help. Use your network of friends and family, online and offline, to up the ante. By sharing your goals and deadlines with friends and family, you become accountable to someone other than just yourself.

Fear is an excellent motivator. If you quit early or fail to reach your goals, your friends and family will know you have failed. You won’t want to fail in their eyes, so you will work harder and respond positively to the self imposed pressure.

Telling your coworkers at the water cooler and your family at home also helps you create a social support network. Good friends and loving family will understand how important these goals are to you, and will help keep you on track. They won’t offer you pizza when you are on your diet. And they won’t pressure you to go out for drinks when they know you have an important business task to complete that evening.

Write it Down

Writing your goal down is another important step. Some people like to put it on a slip of paper on their night stand. This way they see it when they wake up in the morning, and when they go to sleep at night.

I like to use Google Docs to write out my goals, and use the document to either journal about my progress or make important notes which I think of on a daily basis. Having my document “in the cloud” allows me access to it wherever I have an internet connection.

Do It Now

Meaningful goals which improve your business, wealth, health, and happiness are achievable when you follow proper goal setting. Ensuring that the goal is self-motivating, and being specific about the goal and its deadline, is imperative to achieve success.

Enlisting our friends and families for social support, and to apply beneficial pressure, is also important in that it keeps us working hard when we are tired and lazy. Now it is up to you. Get started today, and achieve meaningful success tomorrow!

Daniel Padavona is the founder of the image licensing agency Warmpicture Stock photos, which licenses high quality business images. Daniel and his wife Terri live in upstate New York with their children, Joey and Julia. You can find Daniel online frequently helping others plan for and achieve their goals.