VARITY WISE

A new Web site aims to help students deal with campus queries

Even as social networking sites—characterised by meeting of old friends and bonding of new ones—have begun to register low on novelty quotient, it was only time before someone found a way to glitz them up or make them utilitarian. With his searchmycampus.com, Peyush Bansal has done the latter.

Aimed at students, this new classified Web site provides a good platform for solving college-related problems, offering services or plain campus interaction. An online version of the campus noticeboard, searchmycampus.com is a category/need-based portal for students, which can be used to advertise, buy or sell services and/ or merchandise such as accommodation, jobs, car pools, tuitions, even books and laptops.

Bansal, 24, started the site three months ago after working on the idea for a year. “It’s a platform for students to help them solve their college-related problems,” says Bansal, who went to McGill University in Montreal in 2002 and had to struggle with his own housing problems at the time. “I had no place to stay and didn’t know anyone who could help. So I had to go through several noticeboards to find myself an apartment,” he reminisces.

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Last year, when he decided to help the students with similar problems, he quit his job at Microsoft. Listing nearly 15 campuses, including Delhi University, IIT-Delhi, Amity University, Mumbai University and Chennai’s Anna University, the site allows the formation of its own community.

“Students, especially freshers and those from other cities, face a lot of problems. The site is trying to provide solutions so that they don’t feel alienated,” explains Bansal, who has also received a lot of requests from the UK colleges as well. They are next in priority as soon the listing of international universities begins.

The students do not need a log-in username and ID to post their advertisements and outsiders can also access the noticeboard to put up information about a space they are willing to rent out or books that can be used. “For now, anyone can post an ad on their respective campuses, but authentication is the next step that we are going to enable to be able to sift students from non-students,” explains Bansal.

Extending this platform, a discussion forum is on its way, where the students can post their questions related to college-life in general or about a specific event. “The forums will have alumni exchanging ideas and information with the students to help them understand their campus better,” says Bansal, who plans to start the forum in a week’s time.

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Spread across six categories, including housing, jobs, merchandise, service and lost & found sections, the site makes it more feasible for students to fulfill their extra-curricular needs by posting ads for freelance services, music lessons, even looking for fellow students to form a band. Another addition to the list in the next few weeks will be the availability of information like places to eat, where to order food from, suitable housing locations and their prices. But Bansal specifies: “It’s a site to help students and not a social networking site for fun.” It sure seems fun though.