This is a guest post by Dan Northern. He writes a college advice blog at College Thrive. His site’s main aim is to help students find tips, resources, and advice on anything ranging from Academics to Health.

As a student, you probably have a large assortment of notes, papers, and other assignments stored on your computer.

We are now moving towards a digital age, and using paper for schoolwork is becoming less and less common. The problem with keeping digital copies of your papers and notes is that you have to transfer them around a lot, especially if you don’t carry around a laptop.

In the past, people have used things like floppy disks (what is this? 1998) and CD-ROM’s, to USB drives and memory cards. There is now a better solution to move and store your files, and that solution is called Dropbox.

What is Dropbox?

Dropbox is a free (up to 2gb) online service that allows you to sync and access files across multiple computers, and smart phones. With Dropbox you can:

• Sync any file type.
• Sync between Mac, Linux, Windows, & Smart phones.
• Share files easily.
• Easily backup files.
• Access your account from any computer with Internet.

How it is Useful For Students

With all of the papers you write, and the notes that you take, you need a surefire way to access them. There are a number of reasons why Dropbox is useful for students.

• No more lost Word documents. How many times has this happened to you? You type up a paper and save it onto a USB drive. Then, head to the library to print it out, only to find it’s not there. With Dropbox, you could log onto a lab computer and easily pull it up.
• Mobile phone access. Let’s say you’re away from your computer and you suddenly realize you have a paper due by 12 pm. Hopefully, you have already done the paper, and you just forgot submit it online. You can easily access Dropbox on your phone and quickly email the document to your Professor.
• Collaborate on Files. There are times when you are going to work with other students on projects. Using Dropbox, you can upload a document, and your classmates can login to view and edit that document. The changes can be viewed in real-time.
• Backup your files. There is a good chance, that in your college career, you are going to break or damage your laptop. How terrible would it be of you had just finished a research paper, and you spill your coffee on your keyboard-breaking your computer. Dropbox comes to the rescue here, by providing an online back up of your files.

Your Turn

Head over to Dropbox.com and sign up for a free account to give it a try. If you’re not convinced, just watch the demo video on their homepage, and I’m sure you’ll change your mind.

Do you think Dropbox is useful for students?