Five Reasons the IPad is Perfect for College Students

While millions of iPads have been purchased since the device was introduced, there are many more people that didn't purchase the device. I feel like college students would benefit immensely from the iPad. In this article, I explain why the iPad is a great device for college students.
1. Communication
One of the reasons that the iPad is great for college students is because there are a ton of applications for communications. Email, Twitter, text messaging, instant messaging and more - the iPad has an application for it.

2. Word Processing
The iPad can also be used for word processing. Sure, it's not as easy as writing at a full computer, but it is possible to write shorter amounts quickly and easily. This is great for college students that might want to pound out a few words of a rough draft between classes or outline an essay while sitting at a coffee shop. I know that I've used my iPad for numerous writing assignments in the past, both for outlining them and for finishing them.

3. Reading
Any college student has reading to do at some point in his or her college career. More and more, professors are distributing readings on PDFs. The iPad can allow a college student to carry thousands of PDFs and read them in iBooks. I do this regularly and find that it's easier for me to read PDFs on the iPad than it is to read them on paper, because it is possible to zoom in on the PDF on the iPad. Plus, there are a number of full-text books available for the iPad through the iBooks store and other sources.

4. Entertainment
College students need to take a break every now and then, and the iPad is great for doing so. Besides the numerous games that are available on the iPad, there are also applications for reading RSS feeds, watching videos online, and playing musical instruments. If you have a Netflix account, it is possible to stream Netflix movies to the iPad. The iPad is great as a mobile entertainment device.

5. Miscellanea
There are so many different applications for the iPad that will appeal to college students: drawing applications, social networking applications, calculators, alarm applications, maps, dictionaries and other reference works, dictation software, flashcard applications, and calendar and contacts applications. If there's something you want to do on the iPad, you can probably find an application that will let you do it. And of course, the iPad has internet access.

So while it's definitely possible to carry a laptop, notebooks, a calculator, and a textbook or two, it's a lot easier to carry the iPad. I believe that the iPad is a great value for college students and am looking forward to seeing what features the next version of the iPad will have.

Do you have any experience using the iPad for any of the above functions? Feel free to share your thoughts on the matter in the comments below. Thanks for reading!