They may not take the place of your parents, but with these apps you won’t get lost here. Lorenzo Basilio/Daily Nexus

They may not take the place of your parents, but with these apps you won’t get lost here. Lorenzo Basilio/Daily Nexus

GauchoLife
With campus measuring in at 1,055 acres, it can be overwhelming to locate your lecture halls and classrooms. GuachoLife makes navigating simple by allowing you to search full names or acronyms of campus buildings, with the option to view a satellite map or UCSB’s campus map. The latest update also helps you easily locate the most important buildings on campus: dining commons. Make sure to check the menus and set the application to alert you when your favorite meal is being served so you don’t miss out.

Venmo
This money transfer app makes paying friends back quick and easy. While there are various ATM’s located throughout campus and in I.V., carrying bills and coins around can get annoying. Venmo allows you to conveniently make direct bank transfers or card payments to other Venmo users, with free-of-charge bank account and debit payments and credit payments for a per-transaction fee. So next time you ask a friend to pitch in for a late-night stop at Freebirds, you can ease their worries about getting the money back with the simple statement: “I’ll Venmo you.”

VSCOcam
Before posting those selfies of your new roommates and you up on Instagram, make sure to download VSCOcam to edit your photos like a pro. More than a dozen free filters with adjustable levels and the ability to modify temperature, contrast, vignette and more allows you to find the perfect balance so your photos look so great followers will assume they’re #nofilter. Plus pictures import and export in high resolution so you don’t have to worry about your Santa Barbara sunsets looking pixelated.

Spotify
While this app is a familiar tool to many for listening to favorite tunes, the student discount rate allows college students to access additional features with Spotify Premium for just $4.99 a month. Search for any track, artist or album to add to your personal music collection or browse hundreds of readymade playlists to find the one that’s just right for your music mood. Best of all, there are no ads to interrupt your improved sound quality music and you can download music to listen to offline.

GroupMe
Make sure you can easily stay connected with all your new classmates this school year by using GroupMe. While group messaging can often be difficult between iPhones and Androids, with this app keeping everyone in touch is easy and fun. Users create private groups and invite friends by searching for their chosen handle name. In addition to text messaging, users can also share photos to a gallery, enable GPS location tagging and create a collaborative calendar.

Alarmy (Sleep If U Can)
Though optional class attendance might be one of your favorite parts of college, on some mornings, sleeping in can result in a missed quiz or a late paper. This app helps you avoid this situation by choosing between two options to shut of the alarm. Either shake the phone a set number of times or snap a picture of a “registered” room. So those nights before a big midterm you can rest easy knowing Alarmy will make sure to get you up and moving on time.

A version of this story appeared on page 9 of the Thursday, August 27, 2015 print edition of the Daily Nexus.

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