College brings endless texts to read, projects to complete, events to attend, and ideas to organize. Students pursuing degrees in dynamic fields like mass communication, hospitality management or film have even more spinning plates to juggle. Luckily, our phones can be powerful tools for keeping all those plates spinning if we download the right apps.
Whether you need to pull an all-nighter editing footage for a group project, remember a citation for a research paper, or map out a tour company itinerary, at least one app exists to make the process easier. We asked students from filmmaking, mass comm, and tourism majors about their app arsenals and picked 8 that no college student should be without:
Quizlet – Studying an endless stream of names, dates, trends, concepts, theories, and vocabulary words becomes second nature for communication and hospitality majors. Quizlet provides customizable digital flashcards, study games, and adaptive quizzing that helps cement this information in your brain.
Evernote – Capture important details, quotes, ideas, web clips and lists easily while researching and attending lectures/events then organize them into notebooks for quick access later. Essential for collecting inspiration, interview notes, contact info and sources while working on films, news articles hospital industry analysis projects or tourism campaigns.
Trello – Collaborating with groups on productions, events and more is made vastly simpler by this project management app. Easily delegate tasks, share notes, track project progress and monitor who is accountable for each deliverable. Beats dozens of confusing email chains any day.
IMDb/The Movie Database – Both apps provide encyclopedic detail on films including cast/crew listings, user reviews, parental guidance warnings, box office performance, soundtrack info and much more. Invaluable for film students doing research or anyone writing entertainment news/analysis.
Adobe Creative Cloud – Students can access Adobe’s suite of creative tools like Photoshop. Illustrator, Premiere Pro and Spark for a monthly fee. Go from shooting video for a tourism ad to editing the footage, cleaning up audio and adding voiceover narration all through best-in-class Adobe apps.
Hopper – This travel app leverages AI and predictive data to suggest ideal flight booking and hotel times optimized for price. Helps hospitality students research group travel packages and tourism students plan itineraries while pinching pennies.
Otter Voice Meeting Notes – Records meetings, lectures, interviews or footage reviews and generates rich transcripts, allowing you to play back audio, jump to sections and integrate recording info into projects/assignments. Great for reviewing key commentary from professors, interview subjects or collaborators post production.
Spotify/Pandora/Podcast Addict – Audio apps to provide motivation through music or spark creative ideas via podcasts. Hospitality students can create location-appropriate playlists. Film students can use scores to set tone while editing. Mass communication majors get inspired listening to veteran journalists talk shop on air.
Despite our geographical location we have to remember that technology has no bounds,so the right tools make all the difference. Students can amplify productivity, enhance collaboration, tap into inspiration and simplify academic life by effectively incorporating the best apps. These right here are the cheat codes to a successful academic life. What are some of your must-have academic apps? Share in the comments below!