Snapchat is now the most popular social networking service among US teenagers. In India, too, teens and college students are forever Snapchatting — this app along with Instagram is most popular among the youth. Despite what parents think, however, college students these days do not limit themselves to WhatsApp, Snapchat and Instagram; there are a lot of other apps that students turn to regularly. These apps help them in all sorts of ways — from waking them up in time to keeping track of their spending and, of course, helping with learning. Here are some of the most popular ones. 

Memrise 

The Best App winner at Google Play Awards 2017 is basically a language learning tool available on both iOS and Android. If you want to learn a language quickly or brush up your vocabulary, this one’s for you. What sets this app apart from most other educational apps is its refreshing and well-researched approach. It has both “skilled” and “beginner” modes, and the techniques used to help memorise words is to associate them with images and audio. To ensure that the concepts stick with you beyond the app, apart from the plethora of user-developed courses on offer, Memrise provides several memory-aid games. “So far I’ve been able to master basic communicative Spanish, learnt an ocean of English words, and stumbled across some rather fascinating trivia and facts about the world,” says Soumik Banerjee, a third-year student of Bachelor’s in Computer Application in Dinabandhu Andrews Institute of Technology and Management in Calcutta. He has been using Memrise for a couple of years now.

Alarmy

Nothing can be more dreaded than morning lectures that have a strict attendance policy. There are times when you just can’t wake up — every thing from your mother’s screams to the loudest alarm tones fails. That is when you need Alarmy — it gives you a job to complete as soon as the alarm starts ringing and won’t stop until you finish the task. Beware, there are no cheat codes in the form of snooze buttons! You may need to solve a mathematical puzzle or shake the phone for a minimum of 30 times to stop the alarm. The most efficient feature is the one that involves clicking a picture. You select the farthest corner of your house and click a picture of it before taking a nap. When the alarm starts ringing, you have to walk back to that corner and click a similar picture to stop it. Once you have Alarmy on your phone, it makes sure that you wake up on time every day — there is even a feature that stops you from uninstalling the app!
 
Flipd 

Do you have exams knocking at the door along with a dozen new WhatsApp messages? Are you being unable to concentrate on your studies because of unending Facebook notifications? If you keep going back to your phone every five minutes despite your best intentions, Flipd can come to your rescue. Available on both iOS and android, the research-based app helps you curb your phone and social media distractions. You can facilitate locks on apps and games on your phones and have access to only basic calling and texting facilities for a certain period of time. It measures and tracks your progress and you can even join classes or groups in the Flipd community if you take the premium version. “I have been using it for a year now, although sporadically, but Flipd has definitely helped me focus on my studies properly,” says Pathikrit Bose of The Bhawanipur Education Society College who discovered the app through a YouTube video.

Evernote

Learning Chemistry reactions has never been difficult for Soham Chowdhury of the city-based Dinabandhu Andrews College. He just jots them down on Evernote and goes through them whenever he’s free, including during long commutes to and from college. While carrying heavy books and study material everywhere is not feasible, having a digital notepad in your pocket sure makes life easier. “Its easy interface and low memory consumption makes Evernote my go-to app,” says Soham. With Evernote, you can make personalised checklists, clip and highlight online articles, make to-do-lists and, above all, jot down anything on the go! You can take notes in any format —  be it images, sketches, texts or videos. You can also sync it across all your devices.

Toshl Finance 

Since college students are forever broke or on a stringent budget, it’s best to keep a check on where your money is going. Toshl Finance helps you track your expenditure and tighten your purse strings, if necessary. The free version of the app boasts features such as expense graphs and budgeting. You can add your bills and expenditure and set up a desired budget for controlling your finance daily. Even better, it also sends reminders about bills that are due.

If you do not have these on your phone yet, you know what to do!

Soham Ghosh is a third-year English honours student of The Bhawanipur Education Society College