When it comes to friendship, shared interests are pretty important. And in college, while all-night parties and Greek letters may provide some semblance of camaraderie, there may be a few other things more indicative of a lasting relationship. So if you’re looking to make new friends on the basis of shared classes, majors, and other academic interests, check out BuddyUp, a free app meant specifically for those attending college.
Founded by college student Brian Forrester, the entrepreneur’s own experiences at Portland State University motivated him to create an app that would make the academic experience more collaborative and enjoyable. After failing Statistics, Forrester determined that he needed a better way to create a study group, so he built a web tool that would organize students based on their interests and classes. “I went from an ‘F’ to an ‘A’,” he told the Portland Business Journal. And he also soon went from student to entrepreneur.
“There is research that shows study groups correlate with academic performance and research that shows academic performance correlates to retention rates,” Forrester noted. “If we can increase academic performance then the money going into a failed class, that loss can come down, and we can boost retention and graduation rates.”
A study-based social network, BuddyUp lets students find their academic soulmates by looking through their profiles, or searching by course, language, shared interest, location, and availability. And while the app may have started as a local experiment for PSU students, it has now gone international, with students at the University of Sydney and University of New South Wales in Australia also finding study buddies by way of the app. As of the end of last year, BuddyUp was already averaging 4,500 students from 250 classes who actively used the platform.
And because BuddyUp calls itself “a comprehensive social platform,” the app provides “all the resources and support your organization needs to promote adoption within your community, track user-engagement metrics, and measure results.”
So if you’re looking for a way to renew your interest in your schoolwork, consider forming a study group by way of a new kind of social network, and look into BuddyUp.
