What a year it’s been. When I started my master’s program virtually, I thought the burdens of physical learning would disappear.
Turns out that the digital way is just as chaotic, even without daily commuting and endless material printing.
This time around, I’m dealing with a poor network connection and a clunky university Learning Management System. It can’t handle high student capacities without crashing. I spent more time reporting issues to the IT team than I did studying.
I also relied on downloaded e-books on my study tablet for exam preparations.
Google’s new student promotion felt like a lifeline I should’ve been thrown into earlier.
I don’t usually trust giveaways from big corporations. They always have something lurking in the fine print and hidden charges. But with the second semester starting, I needed all the help I could get.
Here’s how I’m using this premium plan to soften my academic blows.
Being a student has its perks
Learning doesn’t always have to be torturous
Gemini AI Pro is Google’s high-tier AI plan. It’s a step above the free and Plus tiers, and just below the Ultra level.
The free plan provides limited text-based prompts, image generation, and small-scale tasks inside the Gemini app or browser. The Pro plan offers the same, plus the more advanced Gemini 2.5 Pro language model.
You’ll get 1,000 monthly credits for generating or animating videos through the Flow and Whisk tools.
It also integrates directly into Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Meet, so you never have to leave your workspace.
Other features include deep research and two terabytes of storage.
You’ll need to prove you’re actually a student, but don’t overthink it. I didn’t have a proper student ID, so I uploaded a screenshot of my student dashboard. It reflected my full name, institution, list of courses, and other details.
The main goal here is to confirm you’re genuinely enrolled and not just someone trying to sneak in for the perks.
Normally, the plan costs $20 per month, which is roughly $240 for a full year. I’m relieved that I’m “saving” with the yearly student promo. It’s a not-so-small amount if I planned to subscribe initially. I find its features incredibly useful.
Unlike technical courses, where exam questions have a formula, International Relations is deeply interpretive.
You’re rarely asked directly what a concept is. Instead, questions are meant to test how well you can apply abstract concepts to real-world geopolitical trends.
The large one-million-token context window allowed me to upload entire documents and have Gemini trace ideological shifts across decades. I fed it journal excerpts and policy papers to map competing schools of thought.
Sometimes, I’d throw in past question papers to detect recurring patterns or angles strict professors like to emphasize, and build a smarter study plan.
I love that I’m able to process all the information on one screen instead of having endless browser tabs open.
I transformed Google Calendar into my personal LMS
Sometimes, you must take matters into your own hands
Credit: Lucas Gouveia / Android Police | insta_photos / Shutterstock
My university’s LMS isn’t intuitive. Everything about it feels like it was designed a decade ago and never updated.
I paid my fees days ago and got an error message. It left me chasing down the transaction across the gateway and finance office.
There’s also the problem of its tight integration with Studio, our video-calling and content delivery platform. I believe every app is only as good as the infrastructure supporting it.
The platform itself isn’t bad. It’s actually quite polished when it works. But the problem is capacity. You can have the best-designed software in the world. But if the server can’t handle the load, it’s practically unusable.
A single course in my program can have over a hundred students in one lecture’s attendance. It always results in frozen screens or the lecturer gets kicked out of the call.
Also, Studio isn’t widely known like Google Meet and more established platforms.
I’ve learned to build my own lightweight setup around Workspace with Calendar as the core. I use three accounts now: one for work, one for everyday things, and a separate one strictly for school.
My educational calendar doesn’t compete with deadlines from my writing job or household reminders to pay bills.
On my school account, I color-coded lectures, exams, group meetings, and submission deadlines with proper labels. Each lecture event is attached to notes or related documents stored in Google Drive.
Since they’re all synced, I see everything in one unified view and across devices.
Normally, you can set simple pop-up or mobile notifications for upcoming events with Calendar’s free version. The Pro integration allows you to send customized email reminders to your inbox or invitees.
I enjoy longer and clearer video calls
It’s also nice to host them occasionally
The discovery of the AI Pro plan started in our class WhatsApp group. Someone randomly dropped a message announcing it. Then the news spread, and within hours, almost everyone in the department had signed up.
The biggest joy came from seeing that the premium Google Meet access, which allows 24-hour meetings, recording, and extended participant capacity, was included in the plan.
We’d been switching between Studio and the free Meet plan for months, while always running into bottlenecks.
Studio classes used to record automatically, but the option isn’t available on Meet’s free plan. Both had one-hour time limits.
With students’ collective subscriptions, anyone can start a call and invite the rest. Then we record from our computers and upload the video to Drive afterward on stronger home networks.
Gemini can summarize the transcript and highlight discussion points.
Occasionally, we combine calls with YouTube livestreaming. Classes remain on Meet, while the stream link lets anyone else join from YouTube without signing in from scratch or needing extra bandwidth.
The lecture is automatically saved to the channel afterward and allows students to replay.
Become a Pro student
Gemini AI Pro may be overkill if you barely use your free account. But it’s worth it for academic or research-heavy work.
In particular, I love to turn complex notes into interactive podcasts with NotebookLM. The free version quickly hits its limits, but you’ll work with far more notebooks and generate more Audio Overviews on the Pro plan.
At least now that OpenAI has hiked ChatGPT’s pricing, my old AI companion can take a break. Gemini’s got this semester covered.
