Homework, papers, nonsense. These all go hand in hand, but--when it comes down to it--each student must engage in his or her fair share of it throughout the years spent at university. Thankfully, for Mac users, there's a tool to make paper writing go much, much faster by removing the distractions of websites, AIM windows, etc.
I present to you: WriteRoom. It's a very simple program that just maximizes itself to cover the entire screen. A simple idea, but one of the most useful programs I have ever used.