11 apps that make your life in Wageningen easier

 The smartphone is your constant companion? Then this is the perfect article for you to find out how to use it effectively in Wageningen. There is a lot going on in Wageningen and we all have to organise our student life to some extent. With this respect, there are plenty of application that make your life easier.

A couple of weeks ago, I thought about topics and possible articles for the International Students Blog. One of the ideas that I had was to write an article about the apps that are helpful in Wageningen or in the Netherlands in general. Last week I found that WUR vlogger Sophie  had the same great idea and published a Vlog with her 10 favourite apps for students. It was great to see what she found important and interesting.

I agree with Sophie, that the Blackboard app (available for iOS and Android) is one of the most important and most useful apps for studying at WUR. You have everything in that app that you also have in the online version of blackboard: An overview of your classes with all documents.

I also really like the WURpp and often use 9292. The WURpp is an application by the university which posts little assignments, such as taking a picture with your friends during lunch and describing what’s in your lunchbox or uploading a picture with your parents on campus to the app. You receive points for completed assignments. If you earned enough points, you can choose between several rewards, such as a WUR sweater, mug or the Dopper. If you earned a lot of points, you can even get a travel backpack. Sophie is trying to get enough points to get one and so do I, but I am not sure whether I succeed in collecting 1000 points until the end of my Master.

I introduced the 9292 application in my very first article about transportation in the Netherlands, already. The app tells you which bus or train you need to take from where and when to get to your desired destination. Very useful!

Sophie also introduced two new apps to me: WeTransfer and Koken met aanbiedingen and I downloaded them immediately. With the former, WeTransfer, you can send pictures via e-mail  very easily. You probably also sometimes face the problem of wanting to send photos or videos in an e-mail  attachment that are too large to be send. WeTransfer helps solving this problem: You download the app, select the pictures you want to send (up to 10 GB), enter the e-mail  address of your friend and your e-mail  address, add a message if you like – done! The latter, Koken met aanbiedingen, sends you recipes of meals that are composed of ingredients currently on sale in supermarkets of your choice. I think that’s really great: You get new dinner or lunch ideas and you are saving some money. I love cooking and I am always looking for new recipes that are not too expensive, so this is a perfect app. Thanks, Sophie for sharing it!

There are some more apps, that Sophie did not introduce in her Vlog, that I find very handy. My favourite is BringMe. When you subscribed for Bring Me, every parcel can be delivered to the Bring Me box at Forum. When you order something or your friends and family from home want to send you a package, you just fill in the address of Forum together with Bring me + your name and you get a notification from the app on your phone that a parcel arrived for you. Then you have five days to pick it up. You open the box with a QR code in your app. I think it’s such a great idea! As students we are normally often not at home during the day if parcels are delivered. If someone else takes them for you, you don’t know who took it. If the mailman brings it back to the post office, you have to go there and get it. But if the package is delivered to the place where you are almost every day anyways, that makes life so much easier.

Buienalarm, is a weather app that tells you if and how much it will rain in the two hours.

The two apps that I probably use most often are the app of the Sports Centre de Bongerd and Buienalarm. In the first one, the SCB app, you can subscribe for classes, see the schedule and list of sports and can see your account to check for which courses you subscribed. Often, I find it much easier to schedule my sports classes on my phone instead of using the PC. The second one, Buienalarm, is a weather app that tells you if and how much it will rain in the two hours, but provides you also with a forecast of the whole day and the next couple of days. That’s very useful if you want to know what jacket to wear or when you are planning a trip. For example, while I am writing this, it is raining cats and dogs and I pity the people that I see on their bikes from spot in the Forum library. I have to go to class at Leeuwenborch later, so it’s good to know that there’s a short period of time when it will stop raining when I have to go there.

Another WUR-related app is the Available PCs app. Especially during study and exam week, when it is really crowded in the library and everyone is fighting for a computer, you can check how many PCs are available in which building and in which room.

The last two applications that I want to bring to your attention are Uit in Wageningen and Openingstijden. Uit in Wageningen is, as the name already tells you, kind of an event calendar for the city. Selecting a date, it shows you the cinema programme, where and when to find exhibitions, events on campus, live music, discussion rounds and many more. If you don’t know what to do on a certain day, check that out! The last one, Openingstijden, allows you to check the opening times of all shops at one glance. You still have to pick something up at Action and also at a store in the centre after an evening class, but you don’t know how long the shops are open: check it in Openingstijden.

I hope the application recommendations really make your life easier. Stay tuned!