We’ve all been there. A seemingly endless number of lessons, textbook readings, homework assignments, essays, research papers, and those dreaded final exams. Most times, you have the willpower, and possibly, the motivation to get it all done and make a decent grade. But you lack that one tool that could help you find the information you need to give your assignment that extra punch. Well, worry no more. Your school semester can get off to a great start with these helpful free resources.
1. Roger Hub
When it comes to final exam time, you’ll want to know what you need to get in order to have a certain grade point average. Roger Hub is your answer. Whether your professor uses points, weighting, or percentages, you can figure out what your final grade will be beforehand.
2. Bibme
Professors seem to always want writing assignments in certain formats and different citations and bibliographies for certain types of papers. If you’re taking multiple classes at once, it can be difficult to keep up with which format goes where. Whatever format it is, BibMe helps to put your sources in the right format.
3. Grammarly
It’s annoying when you have a great paper, but your grammar is sub par. Improve your writing — spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and tense usage — with Grammarly. With their app, you can check your paper from your browser or from Microsoft Word. Be confident when you submit your work that it is error-free.
4. Tutor.com
Need a tutor? Tutor.com offers 24/7 tutoring in over 40 different subjects. Get a tutor — day or night — in math, science, computer science, social studies, and English subjects. Additionally, tutors are available to help SAT test prep and advanced courses. Tutors go through an extended interview process and are fully equipped to help students in specific subjects. (Personal note: I passed college algebra with the help of one of their amazing tutors.)
5. InternMatch
Ten million students launched their careers on InternMatch. You could too. InternMatch allows you to find internships and entry-level jobs that match up with your interests, location, skill set, and availability. One thing I would suggest adding to this site however is a listing for remote or online jobs.
6. Rate My Professor
This is a college professor rating and review website. All ratings and reviews are done by students so feel free to praise your good ones and critique your bad ones. Additionally, you can find out about future professors you may have before you even get to their class.
7. Quizlet
Quizlet is a flashcard/study guide website. Anyone can create flashcards for any subject, but generally, you will find flashcards for nearly every subject you’ll ever take. (Personal note: I passed a class with the help of their flashcards.) You can also take practice tests and play games to make learning more interactive and be able to retain more of what you learn.
8. Student Rate
This site literally gives you discounts and cash back deals on everything from clothes to dorm room supplies to travel to food just for being a student.
9. Khan Academy
This is an excellent, free resource through which you can learn about many different subjects including: math, history, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, and finance, among many others. Khan produces short lectures in the form of YouTube videos. This site helps you to understand tough subjects that you may not understand as well in a traditional classroom setting.
10. Wolfram-Alpha
Thought Google knew the answer to everything? Think again. Wolfram Alpha is a practical know-it-all engine. Essentially, it will answer your homework assignment questions for you or guide you to resources to get your questions answered. If you ask me, it’s a lifesaver.
11. Mint
Want to keep up with your spending but don’t have a whole lot of time to sort things out? Well, there’s an app for that. Mint is an Intuit based program that helps you track your spending, make budgets, track your transactions, and even check your credit.
12. TED.com
Ted.com is one of the most awesome sites around. Whether you’re looking for ideas for a paper, need some inspiration, or are simply constructive procrastinating, there are many valuable lessons to learn from world-class, intelligent, and successful people.
13. Google Scholar
Google Scholar is the best thing since, well, Google. It indexes scholarly, peer-reviewed, scholarly sources across a variety of formats and disciplines that you can use in your papers and research. It’s estimated to contain over 160 million documents so you’re bound to find what you need.
Bonus
#20 is a bonus, but, oh, so needed. Students come up with the darndest recipes.
StudentRecipes.com
This site offers over 5000 recipes created by students for students. If you’re a foodie and a student, then you’ll love this site.
Featured photo credit: Ed Gregory/StokPic via stokpic.com
