APPS THAT HAVE YET TO CHANGE YOUR SCHOOL LIFE
Jessie Larbi
From scheduling to tutorial sign-ups, or maybe that HKU subtle dating page that we all have so accessible to us just at our fingertips.
In HKU, the essentials are tutorial sign-up, Moodle, ZOOM, and WhatsApp apps. The tutorial sign-up app provided by the university basically has all the courses you’ve got in your basket for the semester. Usually, in the first week of the semester tutorials, you can simply log on using your HKUportal username and password, then select the tutorial slot most compatible with your schedule. As for the Moodle app, instead of always opening a tap on safari or google chrome, just a click away on the app would immediately bring us to our course assignments and study materials. Then we’ve got WhatsApp, this one may seem pretty obvious, but I don’t think the university would be survivable without it. Sometimes tempted to delete it, it’s just the go-to application for group project discussions. The awkward part is once those projects are over, the group chat turns dormant, but no one dares leave it as well.
During this pandemic, it has become pretty obvious that video conference apps are one of the many applications for which must be installed on our devices. ZOOM, Skype, Microsoft team, or for maybe something more casual, HouseParty. Irrespective of the political affiliations with zoom, it is the one app that professors frequently use to host their lectures. But if we have a look at the other ones mentioned above, they all do perform the same - it’s just for video chatting. To narrow it down, a house party is a more laid back one, which incorporates games such as virtual UNO, Heads Up! Chips and Guac and the all-time family time game Quickdraw. Ringing your friends up rather than going through the process of emailing them your Zoom Link, Houseparty essentially substitutes as FaceTime and more.
Being in Hong Kong, this one may not seem entirely obvious but for some with minimal Cantonese, google translation is a must-have. Going into that Cha Cha Teng, to order the ramen but would love to have it to come with a pristine sunny side up egg and lemon tea, so an input of my English command into the English box which could sometimes translate into incoherent gibberish. Nonetheless, it’s an app worth installing just in case you forget that Deutch vocabulary that you wanted to use so badly to impress your teacher and so forth.
Heavy downpours days, gloomy weathers then an unexpectedly sunny afternoon, just to be later surprised by a breezy golden hour. Undoubtedly, the weather in Hong Kong has its moments. Downloading the MyObservatory weather app to keep tabs on the city’s weather. The Hong Kong observatory app provides location-specific temperature updates and even notifies users of possibly downpours a few minutes before they occur.
Many of our devices already come with their own calendars but it just seems much more convenient downloading an external schedule. These scheduling applications usually come with wiggling features that are more friendly and curated to making everything more efficient for us. TimeTree, a Japanese calendar app, which ticks all the boxes of what a calendar should have, is one of those notable virtual planners. This tree comes with branches that sprout to integrate others into your plan, by sharing a calendar with them or even having a chatroom for making events. With a kaleidoscope of color bands to help one differentiate work from playtime, it is an app that has been well-thought-out to make scheduling less tedious.
For the next scheduling app, P.C. is another calendar worth looking into, especially for our females’ readers who would like to keep track of your menstrual cycle. This period tracking app doesn’t just remind you days in advance about your period, but it also multifunction as a menstrual forum for ladies seeking more information about their menstruation pattern. Some of these forum rooms could range from birth control conversations to menstrual health discussions.
