I enjoyed college so much that I went back for a second round. I used Canva throughout both college experiences, and it really helped make college easier, smoother, and more successful.
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Printed From the Canva Print Shop
Need Printed Projects? Canva’s Got You
Canva’s integrated print shop lets you print your designs on all sorts of products. While most of these won’t be a make or break for getting better grades at school, they could be what gives you joy each time you pack your backpack or get your notebook out in your classes.
You can print high-quality and well-priced flyers or posters which could be used for class projects. But if you just need a little pizzaz and school spirit, you can design and print custom notebooks, t-shirts, or tote bags with your school logo or something to inspire your learning too.
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Designed an Email Signature
Professional Communication With Canva
Canva is typically used for standard social media graphics and digital marketing adverts, but you can use it to design practically anything. Its simple ease-of-use makes Canva a great option for designing an appropriate and professional email signature to add to the bottom of your student emails.
Having an email signature sign off sets you up as a professional in your field even while you’re still a student. Plus, it’ll put you in good standing with your professors to have a sign-off when you contact them, rather than ending all your emails with “Sent from my iPhone.”
You can easily design an email signature in Canva and make it as simple or complex as you’d like. Whether you want to go as far as adding other contact details like your cell phone number or social media profiles is your choice. For your student email, it could be a good idea to write your name, your major and degree type, and perhaps your student number. Other pertinent information might include adding your pronouns or availability hours.
You can’t use Canva itself to add your signature to your email. Each email client has different techniques for adding email signatures, so you’ll have to research based on the email client you use.
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Collaboration for Group Projects
Not Just for Canva Teams Accounts
Canva has multiple ways to collaborate which can benefit your college experience when working on group projects.
Firstly, you can sign up for a Canva Teams account, which gives you the benefits of Canva Pro alongside the Teams features. With a Teams account, you can edit, collaborate, and comment on group projects in real time with your teammates. This will save you time in sharing projects and waiting for your group members to read and reply to comments or make changes. It can all be done cohesively in the same Canva document. Teams also offers insights and reports which could come in handy for more serious group projects during your school time.
If you don’t want to stretch to a Canva Teams subscription, using Canva Docs also lets you collaborate. From Canva Docs, you can share and collaborate on the document even if the person you’re sharing with doesn’t have a Canva account. While this is limited only to Canva Docs and not to other Canva projects, it can be a handy way to work on group projects with less friction.
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Image and Photo Editing
Polish Up Your Visual Assets
If you wish to use photos and images in any school projects, you’ll benefit a lot from Canva’s editing features. It isn’t the most feature-focused image editor, but if you’re not up for paying for an Adobe subscription, using Canva for editing images for school is the next best tool.
The photo-editing features in Canva allow you to add certain effects to your images which may benefit school projects or assignments. Using the Duotone feature, for example, you can edit images to have a sepia effect to add to History or English projects.
You can add images to presentations, group projects, or documents. You can also use Canva to convert images to different file types, if needed.
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Canva Docs
Makes Assignments Fancy
Canva Docs is a built-in way to make your documents just a little bit fancier. No, Canva isn’t going to write your assignments for you, but it might help add some visual je ne sais quoi to an otherwise unmotivating project.
Just because Canva has AI features that can, in theory, write assignments for you, I don’t condone using these for your college assignments. Use Canva Docs for creative purposes and not to replace your intelligence and writing skills. Earn your A grades properly.
Although you might be limited in format type for school projects, if you’re not required to set up your documents to a specific format, such as MLA or Chicago, then you can use Canva Docs to have a little bit of fun with the layout.
Canva Docs lets you create regular documents, spreadsheets, questionnaires, to-do lists, tables, and even more. The fun with Canva Docs is that you can add images or visual assets easily, including animations, you can embed Canva Apps features into your projects, or any number of other Canva features.
This might not be the tool for every degree student, but it’s certainly a way to inject some fun into your project assignments if you don’t have such strict rules to follow for them.
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Docs to Decks Saves Time
Transform Your Assignments to Visual Presentations
Combining two of Canva’s great features—Canva presentations and Canva Docs—you can benefit greatly from merging the two together. The Canva Docs to Decks feature saves so much time and frustration if you need to make a presentation or slide deck based on assignment research or any other document.
At the click or tap of a button, your original Canva document transforms into a pre-designed, template-based slide deck. While it works pretty well straight off the bat, you can continue editing the slide deck for better personalization or layout, giving you the best way to present your information.
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Design Your Resume
Prepare Yourself for Post-Education
You’ll need to make a resume while you study. Whether you’re looking to get a part-time job alongside your studies, or you want to prepare best for graduation and find a new job as soon as you can, using Canva to build a resume is a great option.
You can make resumes using the Canva Docs feature. If you’re looking for a more relaxed or creative job role—like something with children or in the creative industries—you’ll benefit massively from Canva’s creative templates and drag-and-drop elements library.
Canva compares well against Google Docs and Microsoft Word for resume building, so if you’re already using Canva for other things in your college journey, it’ll be like second nature to create and design a resume using the tool too.
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Presentation Design
Better than PowerPoint
Using Canva for presentation design is one of my go-to uses, whether I’m doing it for a school assignment or something for fun.
Canva’s drag-and-drop design system makes it super easy to add or remove elements to a presentation, but its template design system makes it even easier to design engagement presentations.
I used Canva during many school presentations as well as teaching classes during my Master’s degree. The templates are set up ready for you to pick based on subject or simply based on visual aspects.
You can reuse elements or duplicate page layouts so you spend more time adding and editing the content of your presentation rather than procrastinating on the visuals.
One of the best benefits of Canva’s presentation feature is that you can use your phone as a remote for presenting it. Once you are set to present, hit the More ellipses at the bottom right and choose Share Remote Control. Then you can scan a QR code to open the remote from your phone. It even includes added extras like adding drumroll effects or a curtain opening.
Canva has always been one of my favorite creative tools, but it really comes into its own as an educational tool that can help you get through college. Whether you’re using it to aid your assignments or just to give you some serotonin boosts to get through your schoolwork, there are some great ways to integrate Canva for college and school. With many free tools and an affordable Pro membership, Canva’s a fantastic option for students and young professionals.
