It’s sometimes difficult to believe it has been almost two decades since I left the British education system. Although technology played a vital role during my earlier years in life, what was available on systems at school pale in comparison to today’s standards. Then there’s the hardware at home. I had a Tiny PC desktop available but it could barely run modern software and there was no access to means for self-hosting anything. So, here are some apps and services that could have helped me get through studies that I recommend to those going back to school.
Logseq
A safe place for your thoughts
A lot of information is bombarded at you daily through school and there’s no real easy way to make full sense of everything at the time. Back in the early 2000s, it was all about pen and paper — anyone else recall those fruit-smelling gel pens? There was no Obsidian or Logseq to help me full articulate thoughts and make note of absolutely everything.
Although I may be through the other side of the system, I still enjoy learning new things and happen to be looking to complete a financial qualification course, which is where Logseq comes into play. This powerful privacy-first and self-hostable solution to all your note-taking and thought-forming needs. I could have made good use of such a tool back in the day.
But don’t worry if you can’t self-host or require something slightly more local as Obsidian is a fantastic alternative. These tools are fantastic for building a personal knowledge base, much like you would a community wiki for a favorite video game. It’s much smarter than paperback too, allowing for sourcing, outlinking, queries, and more.
Nextcloud
Save money (and time)
Microsoft Office was the hit at school. Firing up Excel or Word made you feel like a hotshot with all the same features available to you that someone far more important would rely on daily. That said, Microsoft Office wasn’t cheap, especially for the home, and it still isn’t today. Instead of paying for a monthly subscription, fire up a spare device and load Nextcloud as a hosted solution for all your productivity requirements.
Nextcloud is absolutely brilliant for those who need to get work done and collaborate with others. There’s mail, calendar, tasks, word processing, spreadsheets, file storage and sharing, and much more available within the single package. As well as utilizing the full self-hosted and cloud-based suite for note-taking and document management, Nextcloud, countless plugins are available to take your studying to the next level.
Zotero
Research made easy
You’ll sometimes be required to research for a dissertation or some other long-form format and Zotero can really make a difference, allowing you to manage research with academic papers and citations. Everything can be self-hosted and managed either on NAS, home server, or the PC you’re using to read this feature. Although it can be installed on supporter platforms, self-hosting Zotero makes it possible to take all of your research with you, regardless of location or hardware.
The best part about some of these tools, such as Zotero, is the available integration with other apps and services. Zotero can be linked to Obsidian, Nextcloud, and other handy productivity tools. If you’ve been searching for something with support for tagging, notes, PDF annotation, and the ability to quickly file content from various sources, I would recommend giving Zotero a try. It became available toward the end of my studies and so I failed to take full advantage of its features.
Jellyfin
Sounds to help focus
Jellyfin is one of the best media cataloging and streaming platforms that can be self-hosted on almost anything. If you own a few movies, TV shows, a few thousand music tracks on disk or in electronic format, Jellyfin can be used to stream it all to any device. When I was studying, I had access to a compact iPod and iTunes on the PC, though were limited by hard drive capacity on the desktop and internal storage on the portable player.
Streaming completely solves this through using a single device to both store and stream the content. All the client needs to do is receive and output the media, be it a season from your favorite show or a complete album. For studying, custom playlists can be curated with content to help you focus on the task at hand. This is particularly useful for work too, helping me become considerably more productivity.
Take advantage of what’s available
To make the most of your education and achieve the highest marks, you’ll want to consider using all tools available to help you along the way. Some are better suited to help you document things and carry out manual tasks, but others like media streaming platforms, can be overlooked since you wouldn’t typically associate them with studying. Do some research, look at how you plan to study and how you can implement improvements.
