The International Student Survival Kit: 5 Apps That'll Actually Save Your Life (and GPA)

Okay, real talk: being an international student is basically like playing life on hard mode. You're trying to navigate a new country, decode your professor's accent, figure out why the dining hall calls it "biscuits and gravy" when it's clearly neither biscuits nor gravy, AND keep your grades up. Oh, and let's not forget the joy of explaining to your bank back home why you need to transfer money for the third time this month.

But here's the good news: technology exists, and some of it is actually useful (looking at you, random apps we download and never use). After plenty of trial and error—and maybe a few minor breakdowns—we've put together a list of five tools that international students actually use and swear by.

Notion: Your Brain, But Organized

If your life feels like a chaotic mess of assignment deadlines, group project drama, and "wait, when is rent due again?"—welcome to the club. Notion is basically like hiring a personal assistant, except it's free and won't judge you for eating cereal for dinner three nights in a row.

This all-in-one planner lets you organize literally everything: weekly schedules, class trackers, budget spreadsheets, and even those group projects where only two people do the work (we see you, free riders). The best part? Notion offers a free Student Pack with premium features. It's like they actually understand that we're broke college students trying to keep our lives together.

Grammarly: Because "You're" vs "Your" Still Trips Us Up

Let's be honest: even if English is your first language, writing academic essays is hard. Now imagine doing it in your second, third, or fourth language. Yeah, exactly.

Enter Grammarly, the friend who politely tells you that "conversate" isn't a word and maybe you shouldn't start your email to your professor with "Yo." It checks grammar, spelling, and even tone, which is crucial when you're trying to ask for a deadline extension without sounding like you've been binge-watching Netflix instead of studying (even if you have).

It's especially clutch for non-native English speakers, but honestly? We all need someone to tell us when we've written the same sentence three different ways and none of them make sense.

DeepL: Google Translate's Cooler, Smarter Cousin

If you've ever copy-pasted an academic article into Google Translate and gotten back what looks like a robot having an existential crisis, you need DeepL. This translation tool is scarily accurate and actually understands context, which means your translations won't sound like they were written by someone who learned English exclusively from memes.

It's perfect for understanding dense academic readings, translating lecture notes, or even helping your parents back home understand what you're actually studying. Because explaining your International Relations thesis in your native language at 3am on a video call is hard enough without bad translations making it worse.

Wise: For When Your Bank Thinks You're a Criminal

Ah yes, international banking—everyone's favorite nightmare. Traditional banks love charging you obscene fees for the privilege of accessing your own money, and don't even get us started on exchange rates that seem to have been calculated by throwing darts at a board.

Wise (formerly TransferWise) is the hero we didn't know we needed. It offers cheap currency exchange, lightning-fast transfers from your home country, and a debit card that works everywhere abroad without making your wallet cry. Your parents can send you money without sacrificing their firstborn to bank fees, and you can actually afford to eat something other than instant ramen. Win-win.