Guide
How I organize digital files for my classes
How I organize digital files for my college classes so that I stay organized and the computer doesn't eat my homework.
During my senior year of high school, I went from having a few virtual classes each year to a truly hybrid online class schedule, where 50% or more of my classes were online. This continued throughout undergrad in college, before I transitioned to having all of my classes 100% online for my final semester and then for graduate school. Since I complete all of my assignments in digital formats, it’s important to have an effective file organization system so that I can quickly locate assignments for upload, as well as reference past assignments and content from previous semesters. Here is how I organize digital files for my classes, including high school assignment organization and college file organization strategies.
I use cloud storage on a personal account
I have a Microsoft 365 subscription for Office apps that comes with 1 TB of storage on OneDrive, which is more than enough for storing all of my class assignments. While I do have offline backups on my desktop computer, cloud storage makes it easier for me to access my files from anywhere, whether it’s a lab computer, my iPad or pulling up a file on my Android smartphone when I’m away from my primary computer.
If I am working on a collaboration assignment with other students, I upload the document to my university account’s OneDrive, since there are enhanced collaboration options for accounts within the same organization. However, I also keep a local copy on my personal account in case I lose access to my university account or there is a system outage.
Many schools, colleges and universities offer free Microsoft 365 subscriptions that students can use with their personal accounts, or free premium tools for Google’s productivity applications. IT services typically provides this information to students and families.
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- Ten Information Technology Skills Every College Student Needs
- Questions To Ask When Choosing A Desktop Computer For College
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I create nested folders that start with broad categories
Instead of having individual folders for all of my classes, I have a system of nested folders that start with broad category names, so that I can organize material more effectively. This helps create a foundation for more efficient organization and also helps me avoid saving information in the wrong place.
Examples of folders I use to organize digital files for school include:
- AssistiveTech: Files for courses related to my undergraduate minor and master’s degree in assistive technology. I also have copies of capstone or final projects that relate to accessibility topics that I completed for other classes.
- Computational and Data Sciences: Files for undergraduate courses in my bachelor’s degree, computational and data sciences, which I still use after graduation when working on various projects.
- eBooks: Copies of eBooks and digital copies of textbooks
- Pictures: Photos from my camera roll, Microsoft Lens or other apps
- YearsPast: Files for courses that aren’t related to data science or assistive technology, such as electives or other general core curriculum classes such as English.
Related links
- How To Choose General Education Courses In College
- Classes That Prepared Me For A Microsoft PM Internship
- How I Find Research Sources In Accessible Formats
- How I Write Research Papers On Accessibility Topics
I create folders for each class
For each of my classes in a given semester, I create a folder with the class name and number, i.e CDS 130. I don’t put these folders inside the nested folders until after the semester is over, so that they are easier for me to access.
Depending on how the professor organizes the class, I add additional nested folders inside of the class folder that can include:
Organizing by topic
For my database programming class, the professor divided our work by four different unit names, so I created corresponding folders for each unit name. This was helpful because we would frequently have to reference concepts we learned in a particular unit, and I could easily search the labeled folders for the information.
Organizing by time
My Java programming class was divided into three sections based on what point we were at in the semester. The professor would reference items we learned in Part 1 or Part 2 of the class, and I organized materials to reflect these sections. I also used this method in high school for organizing assignments from each quarter of the school year.
Organizing by file type
For one of my data science classes, assignments were divided into categories such as weekly activities, in-class exercises and module activities. I kept a folder with labels for each assignment within the class folder, and would put assignments in their appropriate section. Since that class had a large amount of files, this worked perfectly.
Related links
- File Formats For Low Vision and Print Disabilities
- How I Outline Research Papers With OneNote
- Tips To Stay Organized In Virtual Classes
Naming conventions for files
Unless the professor has a different required naming convention (I’ve only had one professor where this was the case), I use the same naming convention when saving my files to their folders:
Class Name + Assignment Name + My Student ID
My program requires students to put their student ID at the end of file names due to the sheer number of computer files that professors receive. So for example, my 6th homework for my CDS 293 class will be written as CDS293_Homework6_Vlewis
As soon as I create a new document in Microsoft Word, I save it to the cloud to ensure that my progress is saved automatically as I work on an assignment.
Related links
- How Amazon Alexa Can Help You Study For Exams
- How I Use Quizlet With Low Vision
- Designing Accessible Documents With Microsoft Word
- How I Organize Emails In College
More tips for how I organize digital files for my classes
- Want to learn more about how I organize my OneNote notebooks or Notability files? Read How I Use Microsoft OneNote With Low Vision and Notability and Low Vision
- I also have a post about how I organize my iPad applications – How I Arrange My iPad Homescreen
- I don’t like to delete assignments from previous classes because I often use the material in other ways for different courses, but do delete assignments that received a very low grade and that were later re-submitted.
- Want to learn how I organize music for college band? Read My Large Print Music Binder
By Veronica Lewis/Veronica With Four Eyes, www.veroniiiica.com
Updated November 2024; original post published February 2021.
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