Tools to help your studies

Tools to help your studies

Max Cresswell, Placement Student, The University of Hertfordshire

Whether you’re a fresher just starting out at Herts, retuning to your second year after a summer break, or gearing up for your final year, we all could do with some useful tools to help with studying. I’ve therefore pulled together the top five tools that were a must need for me when I was doing my degree. 

1.     Microsoft Office

What do I need to say about Microsoft Office, it’s a must for every student. The most useful of all the tools but also the most obvious, as I don’t know any student who doesn’t use this! Word for writing papers, PowerPoint for creating presentations or Excel for data analysis, I don’t think I completed a piece of work without using a Microsoft Office program. To make life even easier, the University offer Microsoft Office for free to all Herts students! Just use your username and password when verifying your subscription and you’re ready. The University even provide computers and laptops available in the LRCs and computer labs, with Microsoft Office already installed. 

2.     LinkedIn Learning

Perhaps one of the most useful tools I found. If you don’t already know, LinkedIn Learning is an online learning platform. They have a huge variety of video courses available covering every subject from business to technology to photography and more. Videos can be long or short, the longest one I saw was 127 hours! In my study time, I found this tool extremely helpful, if I had a bit of free time I would often pop on a video and expand my knowledge of an area of my degree. The best bit is, the University provide this for you free of charge! Simply sign in, using your University email and password.

3.     Herts Mobile app

Certainly, as a fresher, the University app saved my bacon on numerous occasions, it provides you with all the information you need and I can’t recommend it enough. The most useful section was the wayfinding bit. At the start of my studies, I found the campus really confusing and still do to this day, I once even went to the wrong campus for a lecture. Meaning this tool was and is a big help to me. The other app tools include, find a pc, bus times, notification, ask herts and service status. 

4.     Google scholar

Referencing still is the bane of my life, I hated it as much as you all hate it. I struggled with University referencing, since it was very different to what I was doing at sixth form. Referencing there was plain and simple! University is a big step up from that, I had to start looking for more reliable sources, books and scholarly articles and at first I found it difficult. Fortunately, I was told about google scholar early in my course and it was a massive help. If you don’t already know, Google scholar is a google program that searches scholarly articles for the subject area that you need. It really helped me to find reliable sources and great information. There is no way I would have been able to get the grades I got without it.

5.     Ask Herts

Finally, we have Ask Herts. Pretty much anything you need to know, Ask Herts has the answer to. It is very quick and easy to use, you simply type something into the search bar and it will give you search results matching what you entered, simple. Any University information you want, Ask Herts has the answer. For example, when I wanted to find out about parking on campus, I simply typed in student parking and right away found all the information I needed.