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10 essential apps every graduate student needs to stay on top of things

Looking down at a laptop on a desk, the user has a coffee in their left hand. Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels

The need to master essential online tools has increased drastically as learning and working has moved to the virtual world. Being a graduate student often involves research projects and thesis writing, and incorporating helpful tools into the process, helps you be more productive and increases your work-life balance and employability. 

From productivity boosters to apps to help you unwind, here are our top ten picks to add to your toolkit:

1. Udemy

Employers are looking for candidates with a range of technical and soft skills under their belt. Because you may need to hone on these separately in an online class or MOOC, Concordia grants its graduate students free access to Udemy. It has more than 4,000 high-quality online courses and several learning paths. 

Take charge of your self-development or boost your efficiency with Your Guide To Memory And Learning Skills or Machine Learning A-Z: Hands-On Python & R In Data Science. Polish the skills required by today's job market with Microsoft Excel - Excel from Beginner to Advanced and The Complete 2020 Web Development Bootcamp or earn something new just for fun such as Photography Masterclass: A Complete Guide to Photography.

2. Office 365 Education

Active Concordia students have free access to the Office 365 Education package with their Concordia email account. This not only includes Microsoft Office Tools like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Tasks, and OneNote), but also 1 TB of OneDrive storage, Yammer, and SharePoint sites. This means that all your work is safe and synced together. 

3. Zotero

Zotero is a free and open-source reference management software, endorsed by Concordia's Library. You can organize and store your bibliography, choose among citation styles, export sources as a citation or a reference list, add notes and insert attachments. Online tutorials can help you master Zotero, or you can register for the GradProSkills workshop Zotero for Grads (GPLL243) with Concordia Library. 

Install the web browser extension or integrate with Microsoft Windows and Google Docs for more streamlined working. One of its best features is collaborating with others on a group assignment so that it automatically reorders the references shared on the same Zotero group library.

4. Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is also available to all Concordia students as part of the package. It is a secure and practical tool to organize your teammates in group projects. You'll get to share documents, have a group chat session, assign tasks to other group members and even hold video meetings - all in one place. Maximize the use of Teams capabilities by taking a Udemy course on Mastering Microsoft Teams.

Once on Teams, we encourage you to join the Concordia graduate student Teams group called Grad Chat.

5. Grammarly

Editing and proofreading is crucial for your research thesis, project reports and professional emails, especially if English is not your first language. Grammarly will flag typos, Grammar, and sentence structure issues on various devices like laptop, phone and iPad. You have the basic app features for free, and for more robust support, you can sign up for the student package.

6. Task Management Apps

There is a lot to juggle in grad school. To stay on top of your weekly readings, assignments and research, we highly recommend a task management tool like Trello or Microsoft Tasks. These tools help you plan, organize and keep track of your academic projects by mapping out milestones, breaking tasks into smaller tasks, tagging colleagues and much more! 

7. Focus Apps

Does the statement "phones and social media are big distractors and top productivity killers" resonate with you? If yes, we recommend you install focus apps like Freedom or Serene on your phone or use the Pomodoro timer technique. These apps block unwanted app notifications for scheduled periods to increase your focus on what is actually important to you. 

If you feel motivated when writing at a café but can’t go to one yet, why not recreate that working ambience? Or perhaps you enjoy the sound of rain or cottage fire in the background. Check out this cool YouTube channel with cafe background sounds or other sounds to help keep you focused.

8. Papership

If you prefer to read, annotate, and highlight your readings in a pdf format using a tablet instead of a paper version, then we recommend Papership. Once you finish the annotations on your pdf, you can transfer it back to your Zotero account, linked to your desktop. You need to install on your computer a plugin called Zotfile. Check online tutorials to take full advantage of Papership and Zotero capabilities.

9. Free File Storage, Transfer & Collaboration

Nothing could be more devastating than losing your research due to the lack of back-up. It is imperative to store your research material safely in more than one location. There are several free options that can help you: your student Office365 OneDrive storage comes with 1TB storage, Google Drive stores up to 15GB. If you are transferring large files, you can also try WeTransfer.

In addition to saving your documents to your Office365 OneDrive, a Microsoft Teams site or your Google drive, these platforms are excellent ways to collaborate with peers on a team project. Instead of attaching the file to an email, try sharing a link to the file so everyone can view and edit the file in real-time. Plus, changes to the file are automatically tracked, creating versions, so it is easier to go back and review everyone’s input.

10. Google Suite Education

If you need to work on a group project with online tools already commonly used among students, then Google Suite Education is an excellent choice. Google offers software common to the Microsoft package mentioned above. So, this comprises spreadsheet, document and presentation tools that have pre-existing templates to create neat reports, deliver an impactful presentations and design unique resumes.

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