University might become a little less intimidating for incoming students this fall school year as newly developed app CampusGrids officially launches at Carleton.
The mobile app is designed to help students find social events and clubs that may interest them, as well as match students with classmates who share similar interests.
CampusGrids is the brainchild of cofounder Elias Fares, a former Carleton engineering student who grew frustrated with trying to find club information on Facebook and the Carleton University Student Association’s (CUSA) website.
“Of course there was Facebook and CUSA Online but they only gave me a long list of all the clubs that I had to go through and wonder if I would actually be interested in that club or not,” Fares said.
Fares said the social aspect of the app was added when he realized he was missing a number of social events that he would have liked to attend but didn’t due to course work and to the lack of available information.
The three main aspects of CampusGrids are helping students with finding friends, social events, and clubs.
“It helps students bring content about their school to their fingertips,” Fares said. “First year students can add their classes in CampusGrids and then instantly see others in their class and keep track of classwork and upcoming due dates.”
Originally conceived as a website, the CampusGrid’s team of six includes cofounders Tedi Tady, Fares, and Ryan and Robbie Elias. They decided to turn the idea into a mobile application instead as they believed that it would make CampusGrids “an all-around campus app.”
In their redesign and relaunch, Fares said the team strived to keep it simple and focused on a number of limited aspects that students wanted.
While CampusGrids is growing in terms of clubs on the app, which is today past 60, Fares said that while students welcomed the idea and were ready to adopt it, clubs were a little more reluctant.
“The biggest setback we had was to inform people about CampusGrids and let them know that the service exists,” he said. “It was tough to convince clubs to use CampusGrids when it was a very new service and no students were on it yet.”
Although the team is waiting to see how students use the app before determining where to go with it, they plan on promoting it throughout the year.
Fares said he hopes students will be pulling out the app to connect with clubs, find social events, and meet new friends.
