By Hannah Park
Sometimes, our lives as students can seem a bit lackluster. After the initial hustle and bustle of a new school year, we usually settle into a routine that doesn’t vary all that much from day to day. Wherever you are in terms of productivity and academic satisfaction, employing new tools can mix things up and even get you excited about sitting down to work each day.
I’m not talking about the latest “Stop wasting time by doing THESE 10 THINGS” YouTube video, or a nifty piece of stationery. I’m here to introduce you to some hidden gems — some websites that have proven genuinely useful to Barons. These three sites address different aspects of student life: productivity, writing and STEM. Let’s take a look!
Todomate
Todomate is a Korean-created planner app that blows other competing apps out of the water. Until my friend (junior Melodie Tran) introduced me to this site, I used a physical planner to write out all the tasks I had to complete each day. The problem was, with the tremendously busy workload that most Barons have to juggle, I found myself rewriting 30-plus tasks every single day. This was both a mental and physical hurdle that often stopped me from starting homework because I put off copying all my tasks from one page to another.
Then came Todomate, with its colorful to-do boxes, charming character stickers and social accountability. And — best of all — an option to copy and paste all your tasks from one day to another! Gone were the endless scribbles that I sometimes couldn’t even decipher, and the struggle to fit all my tasks into one square of paper on busy days. I felt like I’d been living in the Stone Age.
Todomate comes with many different features, like the ability to sort tasks based on category, congratulate friends on their completed tasks (you have the option to share your to-do lists with them), and the ability to schedule tasks weeks or months into the future.
“I love the clean UI [user interface], and there isn’t too much clutter [like] Notion [has],” Tran said. “I remembered seeing how cool and satisfying it was to color in things once you are done with your tasks for a day on [physical] stationery to-do pads. I really wanted that, and Todomate does just that!”
In addition to aesthetics, Todomate is also extremely accessible. It is free to download from the App Store (Apple). It can also be accessed in website form, too (which is perfect for Chromebooks). You can find the company’s Instagram here.
Almost all of its features are free: I’ve never gotten frustrated because an essential component of the website was hidden behind a paywall. If you do want to spend money on the website, though, there is a premium version that offers some cool perks and additional sticker packs available for purchase.
Although there is a bit of a learning curve to figuring out the ins and outs of this online planner, especially since most of the tutorials online are in Korean, it is pretty intuitive for the most part. The little bit of effort required to learn all of Todomate’s features pays off enormously in the long run.
“Personally, Todomate has helped me stay on top of things and get things done (especially with those daunting deadlines) in which I can easily access what I need to do for the day on the go… during school or at home!” Tran said.
Power Thesaurus
Although I’m pretty new to this website, Power Thesaurus has recently helped me with my creative writing projects and other assignments.
Power Thesaurus differs from other thesauri in that users submit and rate synonyms (by either liking or disliking entries). This results in a larger range of word associations than traditional websites and gives creative options for writers who are looking to spice up their writing.
“Sometimes, it suggests words that aren’t necessarily synonymous but would also work in that context,” senior An Nguyen said. “And, you can sort by categories (adjectives, nouns, etc.) which is pretty handy.”
For example, a search for “adorable” yields ordinary synonyms such as “cute,” “lovely” and “charming” as well as quirky ones, like “bonny,” “pulchritudinous” and “drop-dead gorgeous.”
Well, Power Thesaurus, you are “wowza”! (Thanks for the synonym!)
Science Daily
Biology, archaeology, psychology … if you can name it, ScienceDaily features it. This website collects the latest research from top universities, organizations and journals in one spot, and offers readers daily uploads on a vast variety of topics.
“Visitors can browse more than 500 individual topics, grouped into 12 main sections … covering: the medical sciences and health; physical sciences and technology; biological sciences and the environment; and social sciences, business and education,” ScienceDaily said on their “About” page.
These articles are invaluable to any students looking to pursue a STEM career, especially those who are interested in research; by learning about breakthroughs happening in real-time, they can discover the latest challenges that scientists face today and further hone in on what they might be passionate about pursuing in the future.
By way of illustration, some of ScienceDaily’s latest articles feature the surprising effects of pitavastatin, a drug typically used to lower cholesterol, on preventing pancreatic and skin cancers, the parent-offspring relationship by which adult orchids nourish baby seedlings by way of fungal networks (leading to the growth of orchid clumps that stumped Darwin) and possible research into how we gain new insights and learning after a good night of sleep. There’s even an article about “Welsh dragons” (spoiler alert: they’re probably dinosaurs).
Conclusion
Screens have often been vilified for the role they play in worsening mental health, isolation from the “real world” and the potential for technology addiction. However, they can also be a real force for good — as these websites prove. Used wisely, they may just take your student game to the next level!
