Apps to Survive Freshman Year at College

Your first year in college is the time that you’ll start taking full responsibility for your life. From here on in, it’s up to you to manage your schedule, health, finances, social life, and, oh yeah, your academic performance as well.

It can feel overwhelming, and it is a lot to take on. But you’re lucky enough to have an astonishingly versatile tool at hand, one that can help you manage all those things more easily — your phone.

Load it up with a few of the best apps for college students, and use them to optimize your way to an exciting and fulfilling freshman year.

Apps to Manage Your Time

If you’re a Google Calendar master, you do you. Many students, however, swear by iStudiez Pro Legendary Planner (a free app with in-app purchases) because it has specific-to-school-life functions for tracking classes, assignments, and grades — all of which means you’ll never be surprised by a paper due tomorrow.

Looking for something that tracks school and the rest of your life? Try the free app Todoist.

Apps to Keep Track of Money

If all you need is to know how much cash you have to spend in a month, keep things simple and download the straightforward Left to Spend, an iOS app ($2.99), which tracks that, and that alone. Or take your money skills to the next level with Mint, a free app that tracks budget, bills, credit cards, and even investments accounts.

When you’re out with friends, you can split the bills with Venmo, a free app that helps you send money easily back and forth between your friends.

Apps to Help You Stay Healthy

One of the first things students sacrifice is good rest, which is why free-with-in-app-purchases Sleepzy lands on so many “best apps for college students” lists. It’s an alarm and a sleep quality tracker that you can set to wake you at the optimal moment in your sleep cycle.

Beyond sleep, the “freshman 15” is a common saying or a reason diet and exercise can suffer in that first year at college. But you can keep an eye on your eating and exercise with the No. 1 healthy-living app for college students (and everyone else), MyFitnessPal. It’ll help you track your exercise and eating — and these are, make no mistake, essential to the quality of your college experience.

Apps to Study Smarter

There are many apps to help college students make the most of every study moment. Some of the most popular include Brainscape, a free app (with in-app purchases) that combines brain-science with digital flashcards to help you understand what you need to learn, faster. The classic study guide, Cliff Notes, has an app, too, that you can use to deepen your knowledge of the material you’re covering.

And you can take and store your notes in the cloud for easy studying anytime when you use an app like  Evernote (another free tool with in-app purchases).

Apps to Help You Relax

If you want to de-stress, there are a ton of great apps to try. You might opt for the big guns, like the free-with-in-app-purchase options Headspace and Calm, both of which offer a range of meditations and even bedtime stories designed to help you calm down or drift off. Or you could choose a lesser-known option, like Stop, Breathe, and Think — an app that serves up meditations based on your mood at the moment.

Apps That Keep You Connected

You already know about Facetime, SnapChat, and WhatsApp, so staying in touch with family and friends can be pretty straightforward. But for your freshman year, one of the best apps for safety is the CircleOf6 app, which you set up so friends know where you are — and if you need help — at the tap of a button.

Finally, don’t forget to download your college’s app, if it has one. It could be one of the most useful apps for your first year at college because it’ll be a direct channel to your professors, your campus, and even your grades.