The Ultimate Student Toolkit: Useful Tools for College Students

As a graduate student, it can be difficult to balance coursework, projects, and career development. Fortunately, numerous tools are available to help you streamline your academic and professional work. Let’s explore some of the most useful ones that every Master of Business and Science student should know about.

Rutgers Libraries

Rutgers offers an extensive amount of LibGuides, or online research guides compiled by Rutgers librarians. Take a look at the guide specifically tailored for the MBS Capstone course. Key resources include:

Rutgers libraries offer additional resources.

Polish your writing skills with Grammarly

Rutgers provides students free access to Grammarly, a powerful tool for refining writing, eliminating grammatical errors, and ensuring clarity.

Improve your job search with Jobscan

Navigating Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) is a common challenge for students seeking internships and jobs. Jobscan is a tool that helps applicants optimize their resumes and cover letters by analyzing them against job descriptions using AI. Rutgers MBS has a number of licenses available, providing students with an edge in their job search. You can check out our previous Virtual Friday workshop, which went into detail about the benefits of Jobscan.

Boost your resume with certifications

Enhancing your skill set with industry-recognized certifications can help you stand out in a competitive job market and showcase your expertise to potential employers.

  • LinkedIn Learning: Offers courses in business strategy, marketing, leadership, and more. Many courses provide certifications that can be added directly to your LinkedIn profile. As a Rutgers student, you have free access.
  • Coursera: Provides certifications from top universities in areas like data analytics, finance, and product management. Coursera offers many courses you can audit for free.
  • Google Career Certificates: A great option for students wanting to quickly gain skills and knowledge in different areas, such as data analytics, UX design, or cybersecurity.

Create impactful presentations

Presentations are a crucial part of the MBS curriculum and professional life. These tools can help elevate your presentation quality:

  • Microsoft PowerPoint Templates: Pre-designed templates that suggest a polished and consistent look for business and academic presentations.
  • Canva: A user-friendly design platform offering pre-made templates for various presentation needs.
  • Google Slides: Check out templates built into Google Slides or find free templates online.

Project organization tools

Juggling multiple projects and deadlines requires structure. These tools help keep everything on track:

  • Notion: A versatile tool for note-taking, task management, and collaborative projects, ideal for tracking assignments.
  • monday.com: Although this is designed for larger teams, students can use this to organize assignments, track deadlines, collaborate on group projects, and manage their schedule.
  • Trello: A visual task management tool using boards and cards to keep projects on track. It is highly customizable and suitable for smaller teams or a solo entrepreneur.

Collaboration and teamwork tools

Effective teamwork is key to success in both academia and the workplace.

  • Miro: A digital whiteboard for brainstorming, concept mapping, and interactive presentations, great for workshops and ideation sessions.
  • Calendly, Doodle, and When2Meet: Simplify meeting scheduling by helping teams find common availability effortlessly.
  • Otter.ai: Real-time transcription for Zoom meetings, making it easier to review discussions and extract key insights.

Other MBS resources

The MBS team offers a variety of resources exclusive to our students for professional success.

Leveraging these tools efficiently can be a game-changer in your journey as an MBS student. From conducting research to organizing projects and delivering compelling presentations, these resources will help you succeed in your coursework and beyond.

Author(s): My Le Published on: 03/27/2025