Nowadays, students get bombarded with tutors, paper writer, sites, apps, and even social media accounts offering help. And there’s a good reason for that. Requirements to even enter a higher education establishment keep growing, and once you’re in, it doesn’t get much easier. Some even find it more acceptable to drop out rather than to continue studying under immense pressure.
In this article, we will give you a list of study help resources that will make your studies easier while also not making you go broke.
Background Music
We all like to have some music playing in the background, whether it’s for studying or just washing the dishes. But playing your favorite tracks while you are trying to write a cause and effect essay can be very distracting. Some music can interfere with your ability to maintain focus on the subject of your studies. This is why there’s a mass of free music platforms that will actually help you study.
Get Work Done Music is a very simple site with an intuitive interface. It mostly plays fast electronic music which you can make even faster on demand. This is a perfect platform if you have a deadline coming up. However, some of the tracks there have lyrics and can be distracting to a person trying to write or read.
Brain.fm, on the other hand, is a slightly more complicated website. It claims to have patented technology to help users focus, relax or sleep within 10 minutes. Yet, it’s not free at all. It only gives you a three-day free trial, but it can be enough for some to get addicted. The paid subscription unlocks more music categories, unlimited listening, and other benefits. The price is $7 a month, which is quite pricey considering you are probably already paying for a streaming platform. It doesn’t offer a student discount either.
White noise apps are very popular among students and the abundance of options makes paying for one almost unreasonable. MyNoise, White Noise by ™ Soft, Atmosphere: Relaxing Sounds are just a few of the services available. White noise is perfect for people who seem to always get distracted by others’ conversations, garbage trucks, construction workers, etc. White noise absorbs all the other sounds and turns them into a mass of sound where you cannot tell one noise from the other. This makes it so valuable and popular among those who try to focus in a less-than-optimal environment.
College Course Materials
A lot of colleges and universities have taken the initiative of making college education more available. MIT Opencourseware is one such initiative. This is a collection of course materials provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the best places to be for a tech student. They have a huge library of courses sorted by categories. You can browse by topics, subjects, departments or just study the most popular courses. The only drawback here is that the site is quite dated, and the materials can be pretty old as well.
Yale Open Courses have a similar system in place, yet, theirs is a bit more advanced. The lectures are provided in audio, video, and text transcripts and the materials are a bit more up-to-date. Similarly, you can choose a subject, course, or a topic that you’re interested in and explore away.
Yale does provide more information on a particular subject, with filmed lectures and reading materials, while MIT Opencourseware just gives you titles of books to read and assignments to complete. If you’re looking for a platform to help you self-educate, Yale Open Courses is probably a better option out of the two.
Better Explained
Math is a pain point for many students out there. Often, your teacher’s explanations just don’t do it for you, no matter how many times they try. A lot of students give up at this point. Some try tutors but if they just repeat a teacher’s explanation, nothing changes, really. Hence, some students prefer to simply remember the material instead of comprehending it.
This is why sites like Better Explained exist. Here, you can take any topic that you don’t entirely understand and find an article that will explain it better. There are thousands of articles on nearly any topic, from geometry and algebra to vectors and statistics. Even if you’ve spent your entire life thinking math isn’t really your thing, you might change your mind after reading a few articles from Better Explained.
The site also offers an online course on Calculus. You can read it online for free or pay $99 to get access to videos and more materials. If you take it, you’ll learn how to do math in a simple, understandable way. Also, the author claims to have a 99% satisfaction rate, yet, still offers refunds within 60 days.
Google Arts & Culture
This article would not be complete without at least one Google product mentioned. The Arts & Culture project has been gaining popularity among those curious about art for quite a few years now. However, never has it been more relevant than now. Since nearly all traveling is restricted right now, people turn to technology for substitutes.
Google Arts & Culture is a perfect place to go for those interested in art, yet, unable to travel. Its main benefit over similar platforms is the fact that the images stored there are in high resolution; all of them, no exceptions.
You can take virtual tours in the world’s most popular museums, look at the more critically acclaimed works of art and even play games! All of that is possible without long lines and any risks. The app also offers many 360° tours, so having a VR set would be a plus.
Wrapping Up
There’s nothing easy about studying nowadays. With Covid still raging and public places closed, you can’t simply come to class and discuss something you didn’t understand with your mates. This is where study help platforms come into play. We have the modern technology to thank for all these helpful sites.
Everything, from music, arts, and essays to math can be handled online. To find the right platform, you just have to look. And if you’ve never been enrolled in a university, now is the perfect time to take online courses from MIT or Yale.