MBP apps for college student????

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You can start with Microsoft Office for Mac. That's probably what you'd use the most I imagine.

Goober0311 said:

I am looking for some apps that will help me with my studies. I have been out of school for more than 9 years. I am now going to college and was looking for some apps to help me along the way.

Thanks

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What are you studying?

Have you spoken with your instructors about what software they use or recommend?

What do you plan on doing with the MBP?

SandboxGeneral said:

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You can start with Microsoft Office for Mac. That's probably what you'd use the most I imagine.

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Agreed. If you are starting with generals, you'll only need a Word, Excel, Power Point to begin with. Usually your school will have any specialized software available to you, either on-campus or for discount to purchase on your machine.

Iprocrastinate

http://www.craigotis.com/mac/

Good for organizing school tasks, made by a student.

Dropbox to share documents with classmates

Welcome back! And thank you for your military service.

Honestly, beyond a word processor there really isn't anything required for a BA. You probably will need a presentation program like PowerPoint, and you may well not need a spreadsheet program like Excel. You might want to start using a todo application like Things by Cultured Code, or OmniFocus. But you probably have experience juggling a lot of todos anyway, and whatever system you've used successfully in the past will do fine.

From a professor's point of view, the best thing you can do to prepare for returning to college is to start reading books, preferably long or longish books, and books of the sorts with which you've not had much experience. For example, you might pick a historical topic that you don't know anything about and start reading history books about that topic. Or start with a classic novel that you've heard people discuss. Or if you're interested in computer science, read a book like The Soul of a New Machine, which is about how computer science works, not the mechanics of any one programing language. Really, that will give you a nice running start.

I'm in college, and I could tell you one thing for sure, I do not use these "study" apps like iHomework or iProcrastinate or something. I do have them b/c i thought it is cool and I need it and all. But nope, I used it once b/c I was bored in class and I figured I could create a time table or something about when my due dates are. but didn't use it after that

One thing I do suggest is you try to find the pdf versions of your textbooks. A simple google search MIGHT yield great results- I've tried to find my books in pdf formal and so far I have been lucky for my "big - topic classes" - Bio/Chem/ Math, etc.

I'm still looking for a great PDF reader, but Preview works quite fine [I have Lion and in full screen mode it is quite amazing].


Yes, if you want a great note taking app and Office doesn't give you that feel, then I suggest you look into Evernote - it's quite popular as an organization / note taking app. It can sync across various devices too, so you would literally have your notes whenever and wherever. I have used Evernote once while in Econ class, and I despised it. I didn't like the style of UI, and it just wasn't helpful for me. So it does depend on the user.

Goober0311 said:

Great info.

As for the last reply, I will ignore everything you said except for the part about the apps and the pdf formatted text books. This was what I was looking for. Thanks.

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ugh. i apologize for the post, but thanks for letting me know which parts you kept [i edited the post]

also one thing i would also like to suggest app-wise is "MindNode

The concept of this is basically an organization/brainstorming app, and it does seem quite simple in terms of the idea, but I find it very helpful.

I find this helpful as a tool of "planning my essay or keeping my thoughts organized. It isn't a note taking app, but studies wise, i think that this tool would be great for brainstorming ideas.

It isn't free [it's $20, so this may not sound appealing to you] but if you are interested, i suggest checking some youtube videos out, just so you don't blindly follow my words and then regret later.

And lastly, i suggest you look at the following sites as they may give you an idea of what you may want [ a simple google search of mac apps for college]
http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/productivity-roundups/6-back-to-college-apps-for-mac/

http://dbachrach.com/blog/2007/09/10-necessary-mac-apps-for-the-college-student/

http://nullagenda.com/ten-great-mac-apps-for-college-students-130

http://education-portal.com/articles/Essential_Mac_Apps_for_Students.html

hope this helps!

You were fairly well set when you got the MS Office Suite. Most colleges/professors will want papers turned in in Word. A tip--if you don't already know things like paragraph layout controls (one example--hanging indent used in formatting references), table of contents, footnotes, etc, spend some time boning up on them.

Excel will prove valuable if you take business courses. It is also used by some in introductory statistics, chemistry, etc. Powerpoint will probably be useful in a number of classes that will require you to make presentations (including group presentations).

Check what software is available at student discounts from your college. These discounts are often better than 'regular' student software discounts offered by software retailers.

Dropbox is great for cloud backup (and syncing if you have more than one device) 2 gb of storage is free.

The following may depend on your personal preference:

• a dedicated outlining tool -- OmniOutliner is the best
• a mindmapping tool -- Freemind is free, open source. Mindnode is free on the appstore, Mindnode Pro is $20
• a taskmanager/to do manager--many of these, some, such as wunderlist, are free. Things and OmniFocus (what I use) have been the big hitters. Firetask is worth a look as well.
• a dedicated notebook tool--Evernote, simplenote, Circus Ponies Notebook... the list goes on. Search and review some of the forum discussions on notebook software if your interested in this area.

Other software will depend on your major. For example, a math major would generally want a symbolic math manipulation program such as Maple or Mathematica, which might be free to math students at the college, but otherwise are hundreds/thousands of dollars.

As you progress into the upper levels of college and then to grad school, there are other programs that become essential. However, most would be overkill in the first couple of years of college.

Good luck!

MathRulz said:

[The Entire Post]

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great post! double thumbs up! I'll be sure to flow up on the info you gave for myself! so thanks.

Goober0311 said:

Mathrules - I have dropbox and evernote and never thought about using them for school, not sure why. I will start trying to integrate them into my everyday use.

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Hi,
I only can speak for myself but dropbox is one of the most essential studying apps i know. I have any University related PDFs archived in different subject related folders. Old tests, homework, papers, e-books (some of university libraries have contracts with publishers so you can download ebooks for free), lab protocols, photos of the blackboard when I came to late to the class)

And as student you get doubled dropbox space when using the referral program.

Along with dropbox I use the iPad2 for note taking and as a second brain. I started note taking with my iPad because I have the unpleasant habit of having bits of papers everywhere. Now I use a stylus and notability to overcome this problem.
I have my pdf-papers with me al the time. I can't forget them at home. I can annotate them without having to print them in the first place. I rarely have to lug around heavy books anymore.
For note taking alone (I don't game) the original iPad is sufficient so you can go for a refurb or a used one...

You said you left school 9 years ago so you may want tips of people with similar background. I was not in the military but as you I had some years between school and university. The modern tech helps me a lot to stay on top of things.

iPhysicist said:

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Along with dropbox I use the iPad2 for note taking and as a second brain. I started note taking with my iPad because I have the unpleasant habit of having bits of papers everywhere. Now I use a stylus and notability to overcome this problem.
I have my pdf-papers with me al the time. I can't forget them at home. I can annotate them without having to print them in the first place. I rarely have to lug around heavy books anymore.
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Care to share what App do you use for note taking in your Ipad and also what stylus . . .

Thank you!

@ IeU

Hi, I use Goodreader for PDF reading and annotations (its fully Viewer App compatible) and Notability for writing. (I also used Notes+ for some days but the lack of a decent Dropbox integration and the update of Notability made me switch again). My Stylus is the AluPen from Justmobile. Its big but as my Pelikan Pensil is neraly of the same format I can write with it comfortably.

Hope this helps.

just thought i would mention this: i recently brought scrivener

[they offer a free trial version too for 30 days]

And although I haven't got the time to use it [i bought it after I wrote my first essay], I have to say the concepts look pretty awesome in the sense that it really organizes your ideas . It's basically a writing program, but it has great organization skills from what i researched.

Since you m,may be thinking of majoring in Computer Science, I am not sure how useful you will find it, but maybe check out the links and see if you are interested. It costs $45 - kinda the downside of it; but just thought I would point it out

Though you might have already, if you are in computer science be sure to have Parallels, VMWare, or Virtualbox(free). It will be a lot easier than bootcamping!