The Ultimate Student Resource List

Joe says on January 23rd, 2008 at 10:05 am

Nice list!

However, Nvu development has ceased and it’s basically been replaced by Kompozer. Alhough the source was open so that development could continue, the name Nvu is the property of Linspire.

http://www.nvu.com/
http://www.kompozer.net/about/

Tiara says on January 23rd, 2008 at 10:47 am

Google Scholar came in REALLY handy for academic research as well – it tended to be more useful than my uni’s online academic journal search as I could look through a whole bunch of databases at once. If Google had a citation but not an actual article, I could look it up on the uni library site.

Almost all your college blogs are for US students. Any suggestions for those from other countries?

For those looking for experiential and non-traditional educational resources, allow me to plug my blog EducateDeviate:
http://educatedeviate.wordpress.com

amypalko says on January 23rd, 2008 at 11:06 am

What a wonderful resource! I’ll be sending my students to check it out. Thanks!

Martin says on January 23rd, 2008 at 11:10 am

Wow! A great reference list here.

And – aww, shucks! – thanks for including my blog too.

Dustin Wax says on January 23rd, 2008 at 11:29 am

Tiara: Good point on Google Scholar. I rarely use it, but when you need it, it’s nice to know it’s there!

There are a couple of UK bloggers in the list, but you’re right — most of them are US-based. The information is probably applicable anywhere, but a different perspective might be nice, and different systems *do* present different challenges. I’m sure there are non-US-based student productivity blogs out there, but a) some are in languages other than English, which I wouldn’t understand, and b) I guess I haven’t come across them yet. Know any good ones?

akoesa says on January 23rd, 2008 at 12:48 pm

Nice list!

Just a few a wanted to share:

GIMP alternative: Paint.net
http://www.getpaint.net/

TO-DO list alternative: todoist
http://todoist.com/

Mike says on January 23rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm

Great list, Nice to see GradeMate getting some attention too!

John says on January 23rd, 2008 at 3:13 pm

Paint.NET is a good free alternative to PhotoShop and GIMP that’s much easier to use. Windows only.

James says on January 23rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm

OpenOffice, GIMP and Mozy I definitely agree with, use them even now. May I also suggest my student guides :)

omar says on January 23rd, 2008 at 4:50 pm

here is another collborative web-based mind mapping tool worth looking at http://www.comapping.com

Dubber says on January 23rd, 2008 at 5:53 pm

There’s a new online resource for students that you may be interested in.

It’s called UniSurvival and is aimed at giving advice, study tips, and general coping strategies to university students. Based in the UK, but written by a collection of lecturers and student advisors from around the world, the site is aimed at tertiary students of all kinds, wherever they are.

Although it’s in its formative stages, has just received a major injection of resources and is at the beginning of a major growth period. Look for a site redesign and a large upswing in post regularity from the new contributors over the next week or two.

Nicole Willson says on January 23rd, 2008 at 6:09 pm

You may also want to add wikiHow. I’m a volunteer editor there, but they have a bunch of really great college-related how-to articles about topics such as cramming for exams, how to use certain types of software, drinking and how to balance school and life as an adult.

JamesFromPittsburgh says on January 23rd, 2008 at 6:30 pm

Really solid advice all around. I’d like to add a few.
(1) del.icio.us -> Great for bookmarking interesting articles and useful links on your university’s webpage. Tag lots to make finding things easier later.
(2) Invest in a flash drive and load up on portable apps. I carried OpenOffice.org, Firefox, and Pidgin on mine.
(3) Calendar. Having a good calendar (as well as a to do list) is a big booster in staying organized and keeping on top of assignments. I recommend Google Calendar and Mozilla Sunbird.

Aurooba says on January 24th, 2008 at 12:03 am

for todo lists I don’t if someone has already mentioned it, but Sandy (iwantsandy.com) is really good too, and for local student organizers, Schoolhouse is awesome! It’s Mac only, and can help you keep on top of things real easy.

Niamh says on January 24th, 2008 at 11:21 am

Thanks everybody! Wonderful resources! xx

Eden says on January 24th, 2008 at 12:32 pm

Thank you for this post! I’m sure many of the sites will be very useful to me.

A site well worth checking out that is building momentum still is http://www.chegg.com (formerly textbookflix.com). It’s a textbook rental website that rents books for a quarter or a semester at a fraction of the retail price, and then when it’s due you send it back with provided prepaid labels – kind of like Netflix for students =) I used it last semester and it’s fantastic!

Steve says on January 24th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

Hey, this is an excellent list! I use a lot of these already and totally agree that they can be indispensable in getting through college life.

As a college student from the bowels of Flint, MI, we’ve launcehd a site to help students not get screwed when it comes time to find a student rental…

http://www.ratemystudentrental.com

It’s a student-only site, but fun to look through even if you’re not a student. Thanks for the resource list!

Chelle Parmele says on January 24th, 2008 at 5:23 pm

I’m not a student, but I was excited to see the list regardless. Some of my favorites are here and some I’m going to go check out.

Thanks for the great list!

Colin Joss says on January 24th, 2008 at 6:08 pm

Before reading further below, at first I really questioned the title, but after some more paragraphs and whole bunch of free software links which some I have never heard of, then I can only say wow! It IS the ultimate STUDENT RESOURCE list.

Colin Joss
Colin.Joss@gmail.com
East Lothian, Haddington
United Kingdom

Nathan Ketsdever says on January 25th, 2008 at 5:32 pm

Fantastic list!

Wet Paint and Social Text are very good Wiki solutions. My preference, however is for PB Wiki.

Can’t wait for Google to launch Knols…

Samson says on January 26th, 2008 at 3:10 am

Helpful list, however, I couldn’t register the Free Plan of Mozy Backup~

mojaam says on January 26th, 2008 at 7:22 am

Bookmarked! Already use many of these but I’m eager to implement the new ones on this list. Additions not already mentioned:

http://definr.com
http://www.schoolr.com

tim says on January 26th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

A superb list and one that I will create a post and trackback to for my readers. We’re fresh and new in the college blogging resource space. So next time you create one of these lists, I hope you have http://www.collegestudentsrule.com on board.

Thanks for continually pushing great material.

Colin Joss says on January 27th, 2008 at 5:15 am

Mojaam,

Now I am going to directly look at your URLs. Thank you for sharing.

Colin Joss
East Lothian, Haddington
United Kingdom

Michel says on January 27th, 2008 at 12:50 pm

Great list!
I’d suggest the MS Office student version (with Onenote) instead of OpenOffice and keynote.

Colin Joss says on January 28th, 2008 at 4:50 am

Michael, How much does Microsoft student version cost?

What are its advantages compared to OpenOffice?

Many students usually prefer to use freeware or opensource to save cost whenever possible.

Michel says on January 28th, 2008 at 9:52 am

Michael, How much does Microsoft student version cost?
I am Michel, not Michael.
I think it costs around $130. How much does a computer cost?

What are its advantages compared to OpenOffice?

Overall better product. There is no similar program to Onenote in the OpenOffice. Keynote has no integration with browsers and is an outdated, abandoned project made in the 20th century. Compatibility (I had problems with spreadsheets and OpenOffice before). Doesn’t look hideous.
I think that’s all.

Michel says on January 28th, 2008 at 10:26 am

Another suggestion:
Autohotkey (freeware). Students have to write a lot and the text substitution feature can save a lot of time.

Dustin Wax says on January 28th, 2008 at 11:19 am

Michel: ACtually, students can get Office 2007 for $60 from Microsoft until APril or May of this year. I don’t remember the URL, but the promotion’s name is “Great Office Steal” or something like that. I think that’s the complete Office, more than just the Student and Teacher Edition.

That said, there are lots of students for whom $60 is still too much, especially after tuition, books, room and board, fees, etc. I agree that Office does some things much better than OOo, but for most basic stuff, OOo is fine (heck, even WordPad would be fine for general paper writng). Unless there’s a compelling need for Office’s features, where the added cost would be a barrier to an education, I say, go with OOo.

KeyNote is horribly outdated, yet I use it all the time for writing academic papers. There are more current and slicker programs out there, but KeyNote’s functionality has yet to be exceeded. I don’t see OneNote as an alternative, though I’ve never used OneNote on a full-time basis — I keep installing trials, using it for a while, and uninstalling it when I find nothing useful I’d do with it. YMMV…

Robert Plumer says on January 28th, 2008 at 11:47 am

Excellent listing. Thank you!

Miro says on January 28th, 2008 at 11:51 am

with all due respect but Open office sucks a great deal of bfdds. Everyone i know and is fond of open software and stuff hates it because it’s so freakin buggy unreliable and so much more. It just doesn’t do the work it’s supposed to. It ruins it.

Michel says on January 29th, 2008 at 9:04 am

Dustin,
Thanks for the clarification on this.
Maybe I should give keynote another shot.

Dustin Wax says on January 29th, 2008 at 11:30 am

Michel: Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with OneNote if it’s working for you. I never got the hang of it. I like KeyNote for it’s outlining, which seems to fit the way I think.

Mary Tran says on January 29th, 2008 at 7:22 pm

Great resource! Here are a few more:

College V2: http://www.sevenseek.com/collegev2/
Good blog on how to survive college and make the most of it.

http://wiki.chainofthoughts.com/ – Chain of Thoughts – type in a keyword and it generates a list of related keywords and topics. A neat tool to help with research topics.

http://www.campusexplorer.com – College search and information site.

http://www.fullbooks.com/ – Thousands of books published online to read for free.

Alex Geller says on February 1st, 2008 at 2:47 am

Right on! This list is nice. I’m looking for a program for assignments and grading. I’m going to order one online called Grades+ at this site. I actually found it at the company Creative Hyperflux and they had screenshots. The site has links that take you to http://www.studentplannerorganizer.com

The program is a download for $20 – if anyone knows anything about it, please let me know before I get it. Again, this site is really helpful to me and I like the tips for the sites. i haven’t tried most of them yet. Thanks.
Peace,
Alex

Alex Geller says on February 1st, 2008 at 2:51 am

So sorry, the website I posted is not mine. I got confused. Creative Hyperflux is the company and I put their website in the website field by mistake. It is for the program I was asking about called Grades+.

Alex

Alex Geller says on February 3rd, 2008 at 5:03 pm

Hi out there,
I just want to say that I go the Grades+ software and its pretty awesome. It’s got this area where you can place all of your classes at once from your whole major so that you can choose any of them later when you are actually taking the classes. So I just put in the rest of my classes for the next couple years. I was hoping someone would have some feedback before I got it, but any way the link I posted before was wrong. The correct link is http://www.studentorganizerplanner.com Thanks,
Alex G

Bill says on February 4th, 2008 at 9:40 pm

Nice list. Well done!

Buzzword was purchased by Adobe in December of ‘07, and is still available. I’d look for some serious improvements. I beta-tested Zoho and was an early adopter of GDocs. I doubt I’ll use either again, if BW continues to work as well as it has so far.

Notefish is another excellent online resource for quick note-taking. It integrates with both Firefox and IE 6 & 7. Much faster and lighter weight than Google Notebook, although I continue to use the latter for large files. Also incorporates in the context menu.

Cheeto says on February 5th, 2008 at 2:16 am

Hey Alex,

Good lookin out. Thanks for the tip on Grades+. It is better than expected for a student planner. I really needed this.

Cheeto

Aphrodite says on February 10th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

When I’m looking for a cheap textbooks I find http://www.CheapestTextbooks.com to be a good site.

niel says on February 24th, 2008 at 6:11 am

Great roundup of free tools!

The freemind link is broken, though. I think you meant to link http://freemind.sourceforge.ne...../Main_Page

kaitlin says on April 22nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm

another nice app for students is post-it software notes lite – it’s free on download.com and you can display notes on your desktop – it’s been my favorite reminder app for a while.
if you pay for the full version, you can have it give you alerts and schedule things, it’s pretty cool

Jim says on June 25th, 2008 at 1:13 am

Another resource for college students:

http://www.freestudentdiscounts.com

Linda Mercer says on August 13th, 2008 at 2:02 pm

These are wonderful and useful links! As a school librarian and previously a university librarian, I can’t emphasize enough the power and value of asking a librarian! I mean, librarians know all this a more and love to help! Try them…!

Paul says on August 26th, 2008 at 2:04 am

Great list, lots of things on there that are always worth checking out.

I made a list too of good free software:
http://xatal.com/internet/grea.....n-college/

David Brim says on September 26th, 2008 at 6:45 pm

Another great site to check out and add to the list is http://www.GroupTable.com

It is extremely helpful for managing group projects, study groups and student organizations.

Anita says on September 29th, 2008 at 5:40 am

What is much better than GIMP or PAINT or whatever else, especially for digital painting, is Artweaver. It is much more similar to Corel Painter with a Photoshop-like interface and quality, but most importantly, free and legal. Believe me, the quality really shows in the result, especially in beginners. I have used it between getting older copies of Photoshop (Amazon/ebay-another cheap alternative), and the only reason it is not my main program is it doesn’t support layer masks, which if you don’t know what they are, than you probably don’t need them.
http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?en_version

also, the only problem the I have with OpenOffice is the lack of integration of a thesaurus. But, duh, internet.

Greg says on November 23rd, 2008 at 8:16 pm

A great resource for students wanting to purchase “Green” products is http://www.ecofriendlysites.org

Angela says on January 20th, 2009 at 11:03 pm

Also consider the following resource:

How to get free books for college
http://www.ehow.com/how_472500.....llege.html

Serge says on January 29th, 2009 at 2:25 pm

Here’s a new online dictionary/thesaurus:
http://www.memidex.com

It has extensive cross-referencing, complete inflections, simple interface, and frequent updates. It’s fast too.

Typtobbybah says on March 20th, 2009 at 10:32 am

Was ist das?

Pete Peterson says on April 5th, 2009 at 1:02 am

Nice List. Here is another good site for students looking to find technical information and post their resume after college.

http://www.synginc.com/forum

Jake says on April 13th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

Hello all,

Jake here with the Office Live Outreach Team. This list of online resources for students is very helpful. As new free online tools become available for those who want and need to do work from home, it seems that students more than anyone end up benefiting the most. Organizing, managing and most importantly completing one’s various work assignments proves most difficult for someone whose wallet is most likely light (or empty) and whose to-do lists include tasks varying from class homework, presentations and group projects to writing for the university newspaper, athletics, and other extracurriculars. Especially considering that during springtime job and grad school applications may be added to that workload. Microsoft’s Office Live Workspace is an online storage space which allows you, among other things, to store documents and access them, as well as invite your classmates to review and edit uploaded documents, which is very helpful for group projects when individual group members cannot all meet in person at one time and place. Check it out: workspace.officelive.com. Furthermore, Microsoft’s Office Live Students Facebook page is compilation of multiple resources for college students who find themselves balancing all of the above stressors. It is well worth the visit if you are a student who is approaching graduation and is on the lookout for advice on applying for the first job of your post-university career.

Take a look: http://www.facebook.com/officelivestudent

– Jake,

MSFT Office Live Outreach Team

Twin XL says on May 10th, 2009 at 10:44 pm

WOW! So many great links! Thanks thanks thanks thanks!

Sara says on May 14th, 2009 at 9:53 am

every student needs to check out this site! free coupons and discounts to hundreds of retailers, local & national

CJ says on June 24th, 2009 at 1:39 am

Have you tried Mendeley? I use it all the time, it organises all your pdfs, is a bibliography manager, sorts out all the meta-data and also hosts a researcher network where you can collaborate with other researchers.

http://www.mendeley.com

Stephen Gord says on August 27th, 2009 at 6:15 pm

I prefer applications which integrate different functionalities. For example I would recommend HyperOffice because it integrates to-do lists, organizer, email and wikis in a single solution. Sometimes data needs to move between different tools, and having separate tools doesn’t help.

Heather Blake says on September 19th, 2009 at 7:48 am

The links on this site is fantastic, very useful indeed.

Another site for student advise I like is : http://www.university-life-success.com

Student advice by students

emily says on October 19th, 2009 at 6:06 pm

thank you so much! I’m applying to schools now (before the nov 1st early app deadline) and have also used AcceptEdge to match my profile to schools that would be a good fit for me. could help some of you guys too..

ashlee says on October 21st, 2009 at 4:16 pm

acceptedge.com is awesome..especially just in time for the nov 1st deadline. Thanks emily!

Eva says on January 30th, 2010 at 8:58 pm

Struggling to download Zotero! Can you recommend another free download?
Can’t afford EndNotes, but told it is the easiest to use?