College is a heady time. New places, new friends and new beginnings come with new challenges. Despite (or perhaps because of) excessive warnings about how “different” college will be from educators and parents, new college students are often overwhelmed by the new expectations. If you don’t want to succumb to stress, you’ll need some apps to help keep things organized. Taking notes effectively is a crucial part of succeeding in college. And depending on your professors’ teaching style, you may need to take rapid-fire notes from lectured material. If you want to keep up, you can either learn shorthand or keep digital notes. Most of us type faster than we write (or think, in some cases) so you can stay up to speed easily. Once you’ve settled on taking notes digitally, you’ll need to find the best app. While Apple’s Notes is okay for quick lists or doodles, if you’ve got a Pencil, it’s not powerful enough to organize lecture notes. Here are the contenders for the best note-taking apps for college students on the Mac.
Evernote
Note taking software for the traditional paper note taker can be a tough sell, especially when it comes to ubiquitousness and speed, but these apps are a great way to transition your handwritten note taking habits to the digital realm. If you have any good note taking software and paper note taking workflows, please share them below. Jun 02, 2020 The Asus ZenBook 13 UX333 is the best college laptop you can buy. Unless you’re studying to be a graphic designer or architect, you probably don’t need an.
There’s a ton of note-taking apps for college students out there, but Evernote is by far the best. It should be no surprise that it’s included in this list. It’s accessible, flexible and versatile, with powerful organizational options and deep third-party support. It offers the most reliable sync, PDF annotation, and support for a wide range of document types. Text styling isn’t as expressive as it could be, but the use case is more about collecting and organizing content from a ton of different places. Using the Web Clipper extension, you can grab content from JSTOR, Wikipedia, Google Scholar and more, then annotate your clips in Evernote. This feature alone is a godsend when you’re doing a ton of digital research, and it far surpasses the utility of Pocket or another read-it-later service. You can sync between two devices for free (Mac and iPhone, for example) or pay a few bucks a month to sync to unlimited devices. If you have a few extra dollars, it’s well worth the fee.
OneNote
If you don’t love Evernote, OneNote is an absolutely great alternative. If you’ve already got Office for Mac, OneNote is included in your subscription. It features many more formatting options that Evernote, but the design concept is a little different. It’s heavily optimized towards typing notes, rather than collecting information from a wide variety of sources. You can still include images, graphs and PDFs in your notebooks, but that function isn’t as integrated as Evernote. Essentially, OneNote is a different graphical interface for Word, designed to expose more organizational features. If you like Word, you’ll love OneNote. Users that want to recreate the flexibility of a spiral notebook will be pleased with the expanding formatting options, but we’ve never found typing in Word to be that delightful. If you already have an Office subscription, give it a try: you’ll probably find something you like about it!
Mar 07, 2020 Taking notes with pen and paper works just fine for some, but if you have a smartphone or tablet, using an app designed for note-taking can truly change the way you get things done. Whether your note-taking style demands minimal design and slick gesture-based functions, or advanced organization and cataloging of various media, chances are there.
Bear
Bear is designed to make note-taking beautiful. It relies on plain text MarkDown formatting, applying roughly the same range of formatting options that Evernote allows. Notes are organized into collections based on hashtags, so there are no notebooks to be created and organized. It’s more like a flexible tagging structure. The app is definitely built for simple note-taking, and doesn’t have as many organizational features as Evernote or OneNote. Depending on how you feel about those apps, that might be a turnoff, or it might be appealing. There’s limited support for adding pictures and files to Bear, but you won’t have the in-place annotation tools you get from Evernote.
Simplenote
Simplenote is a cross platform, plain text note taking app that’s much beloved by minimalists. If you want to keep your note taking really simple, then Simplenote will be perfect for you. The simple, clean layout is a joy to use, and it’s free of distracting formatting features. However, it lacks a lot of the secondary features that make Evernote and OneNote so powerful. Of course, if you’re dedicated, you can take create text-only formatting to organize your notes. Multi-platform sync is great for folks with a ton of devices. And if you need to take notes on the fly, you’ll find the fast mobile app useful for quickly capturing inspiration. But if you need something that can collect input from a wide variety of sources, you’re better off looking at Evernote.
nvALT
nvALT is built for Notational Velocity, a note-taking platform designed for lightning fast, keyboard-only operation. Its perfect use case is during a phone call. When you want to write something down quickly, you tap the key command, which reveals nvALT from the menu bar. Then, you start typing, and the note is saved immediately. You don’t need to title it, tag it or do anything else. While it’s amazing for that use, it doesn’t provide the broad use that other apps offer, so it might be a little limiting as a note-taking app for college students.
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College isn't all fun and games (unless you want it to be.) Don't sweat it, though. Take a look at these 25 apps — they'll give you a smoother college experience by helping you study smarter, connect with new people and wake up in time for your early lectures.
Your university probably has its own app, too — download it. It will provide you with a more tailored breakdown than a national application.
See also: 12 Things Students Should Never Do on Social Media
Any helpful ones we missed? Let us know in the comments!
1. BenchPrep
Image: BenchPrep
BenchPrep is an interactive course library with all the graduate and professional exam study material you can handle. It includes hundreds of practice questions, flashcards, in-app purchases and almost 600 study lessons. Go ahead and pick your poison: LSAT, MCAT, GMAT.
Available for free on iOS and Android devices.
2. iStudiez Pro
Image: iStudentPro
iStudiezPro keeps track of your deadlines, grades and more across all Mac devices — all you need to do is plug your class schedule into the app. It comes with both Cloud syncing and iCal integration.
Available for $2.99 for iOS. The free iStudiez Lite version limits the number of classes you manage, but it's useful nonetheless.
3. Evernote
You've probably heard a lot about Evernote, and yes, you should try it. What have you got to lose ... your homework? The app syncs all your stuff — text, audio, photo, video — to an online account, so you're always connected with resources to study.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by Evernote's many features, check out this comprehensive beginner's guide.
Available for broke college students (read: free) for iOS and Android devices. The premium version is even more useful, at $5 a month or $45 a year.
4. StudyBlue Flashcards
Flashcards are an effective way to memorize information, but making them is a headache. With StudyBlue, use text, pictures and audio to create the perfect stack of (digital) flashcards; or, search the massive database to borrow someone else's.
Available for iOS and Android devices.
5. RealCalc Scientific Calculator
Did your little brother steal your calculator once you finished AP physics? Use RealCalc for serious computing — it's a perfect alternative for the calculator-less.
Available for free for Android. If you need a heavy-duty upgrade, try RealCalc Plus for $3.49.
6. Engineering Professional
More than 650 chemical, civil, electrical, environmental, hydrology and mechanical formulas are updated in Engineering Pro — so don't worry about buying multiple formula apps. Save or Favorite the formulas you need most often.
Available for $11.99 for iOS.
7. EasyBib
Image: EasyBib
EasyBib generates citations in MLA, APA and Chicago style wherever you are — just scan the book's bar code or enter the title. The app also lets you easily email and export the bibliographies to yourself. Using this, you have no excuses for putting off that term paper.
Available for free for iOS and Android devices.
8. Notella
Image: Notella
Some professors drop the most important bombs when you least expect it ('Have a good spring break, everyone. Oh! One more thing: We're having an exam worth 60% of your final grade the day you get back. See ya!').
Don't miss a thing with Notesdeck. This super-fast note-taking app opens to a new note by default, lets you create custom hotkeys and syncs notes from other apps — iCloud, Evernote, Simplenote and Dropbox. You can even search within those other apps from one search bar.
Available for $2.99 for iOS.
9. Wolfram Alpha
From thermodynamics to baseball, the Wolfram Alpha reference app uses its supercomputing Cloud to quickly generate answers — across thousands of domains — to all your research questions.
Available for $2.99 for iOS and Android devices.
10. Dictionary.com Mobile
With more than two million definitions, synonyms and antonyms, Dictionary.com's fast and user-friendly mobile app will decode that confusing media law textbook in no time.
![Software Software](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126329424/544394126.jpg)
Available for free for iOS and Android devices.
11. Babylon
Whether you're a Spanish lit major or just looking to finish your general education requirements, Babylon provides comprehensive dictionary results and translations for dozens of languages. With pasteboard integration and access to more than 1,500 glossaries in 75 languages, you'll never struggle to find an accurate definition for your foreign language presentation again.
iBabylon is available for free for iOS; Babylon Translator is available for free for Android.
12. Jumpcut
You have better things to do than copy and paste all day. Make light work of data entry assignments with Jumpcut: copy as much text as you want, one after another, and paste using simple keystrokes.
Available for Macs only.
13. Dragon Dictation
Ever wish you could type faster? Dragon Dictation uses accurate voice recognition software to let you speak and instantly see your words in text. Dictate statuses to your social networks or pretend you're talking to someone if you're trying to write a speech — even send statuses straight to your social networks. Try this if you're in a time crunch and really need to churn out an essay; or, if you're just someone who prefers speaking over writing.
Available for free for iOS.
14. SelfControl
Image: Flickr, jonas maaloe
Best College Note Taking App Mac
It's finals week. You have a huge essay to finish ... but then there's Reddit, emitting its bewitching siren call. Every. Damn. Time.
SelfControl lets you set a period of time to block certain websites or mail servers by adding them to a 'blacklist.' It's too bad if you finish your work early — restarting your computer or deleting the application won't negate the timer.
Available for free for Mac OS X.
15. Studious
Avoid interrupting class and getting on your professor's bad side with Studious. Once you input your class schedule, Studious will silence your phone during those hours.
Available for free for Android. Upgrade to Studious+ for $1.99 to bypass the ads.
16. Circle of 6
Ever feel uncomfortable when it's dark and you're in a new part of a city — or even campus? Circle of 6 won the White House's Apps Against Abuse challenge. It helps you stay safe by connecting you to six trusted contacts, whenever and wherever. Use the pre-programmed 'come and get me' message with your GPS location, or easily call national and local emergency hotlines in critical situations. It's a fast and discreet way to put your safety first.
Available for free for iOS and Android devices.
Addendum: You don't actually need six people if you want to double up on contacts.
17. Skype
Image: Skype
Video interviews are not going away any time soon — so you might as well get a heads up now. Microsoft's Skype is a reliable way to connect with faraway family and friends via text, voice and — of course — video.
Available for free for iOS and Android devices.
18. LinkedIn
LinkedIn and all its nifty mobile features makes connections a breeze — for better or worse, college is a time of both personal and professional connections.
Available on the web, of course, but also for free for iOS and Android devices.
19. Twitter
College Note Taking Software Mac Update
Don't be the only person in class who isn't up-to-date with world events. Use Twitter to keep yourself in the loop in both the academic and social aspects of your life. In today's contemporary classrooms, you may even be asked to participate in class discussions via Twitter.
Available for free for iOS and Android devices.
20. Sworkit
There are a lot of things to do in college. Exercising isn't always one of them; especially when there's socializing and studying to be had. Sworkit's greatest asset is its ability to let you choose your exercise time allotment in five-minute increments — starting at, yes, the very low threshold of five minutes. Doable, right?
It also boasts an extensive list of work out routines.
Available for free for iOS and Android devices. Sworkit Pro comes with advanced features and costs $0.99 for iOS and Android.
See also: 10 YouTube Channels That Will Make You Smarter
21. Mint
Club fees. Books. Tuition. Food. College adds up — quickly. Mint is a web and mobile app that helps you keep track of your spending. Plus, it's never too early to start cultivating good credit.
Available for free for iOS and Android devices.
22. Sleep If U Can Alarm
Come on, you lazy bum — you're paying for these early classes, remember? Nicknamed the 'world's most annoying alarm,' Sleep If U Can gives you two options to silent the alarm: 1) Shake your phone; or 2) Physically go the place shown on your screen (see: the bathroom sink in the video) and take a picture.
Available for $1.99 for iOS and free for Android.
23. Pocket First Aid & CPR
Mashable composite, images: Pocket First Aid & CPR
While it's not the sexiest app to have at your disposable, you never know when it might come in handy. Along with clear and concise CPR instructions, Pocket First Aid and CPR contains 34 videos and 46 high-resolution illustrations.
Available for $1.99 for iOS and Android devices.
Macbook Note Taking Software For College
24. Between
Attempting the long-distance relationship course? Kudos — that's no small task. Relationship app Between can help ease the separation anxiety by letting you send messages, voicemails, memos and photos. A private timeline makes it easy to reminisce about the good old days with your significant other(s).
Available for free for iOS and Android devices.
25. TED
College Note Taking Software Mac Download
Image: TED
In an environment often congested with bad influences, a heavy dose of genius goes a long way. TED Talks give you instant access to the biggest thought leaders of our time.
Free College Note Taking Software
Available for free for iOS and Android devices.
Image: Mashable, Meghan Uno