Every student has a Macbook Air, but does everyone use it to its full potential? Here are the apps that are must-haves for your career at Mason. Most of them are also available on the phone.
OneNote is your all-in-one digital notebook. You can classify them according to section and page. The notebook can include drawings, math expressions, writing, tables, pictures and recordings. Notes also synchronize between your phone and computer.
- Pro Writing Aid (Web)
Have you been trying to improve your writing? Paste your essay in this handy tool, and it will point out overused words, suggest more variety in sentences and plenty of other pointers to improve your writing beyond grammar.
No matter what classes you take, there was a time you needed to do independent work. The class falls silent, and you realize you must work. If you have Spotify, just play anything that gets you pumped for the work ahead (except Taylor Swift, of course).
- Adobe creative apps (Mac on Self Service)
The fact that you can get any Adobe app for free is probably one of the most overlooked features of this school. Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects and Dreamweaver are worth thousands of dollars. Professionals use them, but you can get them for free.
This app scans a document with your phone’s camera. That is very practical for digitizing a drawing or an annotated poem for example. It even removes reflections on whiteboards and crops the picture around your document.
Has your TI-84 or TI-89 gone missing? The $10 PocketCas app does everything these expensive calculators can do: plot and solve equations, find Taylor polynomials or factor.
“Height of the Empire State Building divided by height of Drake” will result in a simple answer on Wolfram Alpha. The app can help you with chemistry equations, math problems or satisfying your thirst for knowledge.
One of the main advantages of class Facebook groups is that people post Quizlets. You can learn Spanish vocabulary incredibly quickly with any one of Quizlet’s learning games.
Sick of adjusting the window and zoom on your TI-84? Desmos graphs your equations, parametrics and derivatives. It can also find zeros and points of intersection, but best of all, it’s in color!
- Photomath (iPhone)
If you are struggling through an equation, just take a picture of it, and Photomath gives you the result. Only use it to check your own answers though.
Don’t understand photosynthesis or systems of equations? Khan Academy helps you learn through videos the topics you have been struggling or review for the test. It has pretty much anything you will study in economics, physics, chemistry, biology and math. Who needs school?
