WebPDF by Tanmay Rathod

Engineering life is chaotic. Between submission deadlines, lab manuals, and coding assignments, staying organized is half the battle. As a student at AISSMS IOIT, I realized early on that I couldn't do everything manually.

Here are the 5 free tools that form my "Digital Survival Kit."

1. VS Code (The King of Editors)

If you are coding in C, Python, or Web Dev, you need this. It’s lightweight, has thousands of extensions, and basically writes half your code for you with IntelliSense.

Pro Tip: Install the "Prettier" extension to format your messy code automatically before showing it to your professor.

2. Notion (My Second Brain)

I use Notion for everything—tracking attendance, managing project deadlines, and organizing lecture notes. It’s free for students (with an edu email). Instead of 10 different notebooks, I have one searchable workspace.

3. WebPDF (The Assignment Saver)

Okay, I built this one, but I built it because I *needed* it. How many times have you taken 20 photos of your lab manual and needed to turn them into a single PDF for submission?

The Problem: Other tools have file limits or watermark your pages.

The Solution: I use WebPDF's Image to PDF tool to combine my lab manual pages instantly. It runs in the browser, so it's faster than uploading files to a server.

4. GitHub (Your Digital Resume)

Don't store your projects in a folder named "Project_Final_Final_V2". Push everything to GitHub. It’s not just for backup; it’s proof of work. Recruiters look at your GitHub activity graph more than your GPA.

5. Figma (For Presentations)

Stop using PowerPoint templates from 2010. Figma is free and lets you create stunning block diagrams, flowcharts, and presentation slides. I used it for my recent Ideathon presentation and it made a huge difference.

Conclusion

You don't need expensive software to excel in engineering. You just need the right set of free tools. Start with these five, and you'll find yourself having a lot more free time.