For alumnus Chris Roszell, transferring the dates of assignments and tests for his classes each semester became a hassle, and he knew there must be an easier way to organize his work.
About a year and a half ago, Roszell recruited doctoral students Cheng Yuan and Xin Fengto do the programming behind www.coursehack.it, a website that helps students stay organized by taking a class syllabus and transferring assignment due dates into a Google Calendar or iCal.
Actuarial science senior Nick Wright joined the team of co-founders last fall, when the site only had a few users, to help Roszell with the business side of the website.
“I just loved the fact of being able to help other students,” Wright said. “I do think it is a great tool for students that is very (functional).”
Roszell said the site’s development was completed and launched last week, making it ready for students at MSU and other universities.
“We changed a lot of features on the website,” Roszell said. “We have built a stripped-down version of the website to allow us to really test this syllabus processing feature. Before, we had a whole user flow that was geared toward helping users find the best book deals as well, which we plan to implement again in the future.”
Hospitality business junior Taylor Milke said she spent about an hour writing out all her class assignments into a planner so www.coursehack.it would save her some time.
“I would probably use my Google Calendar more because I can access it from my phone,” Milke said.
Earlier this year, the business got accepted to Bizdom, an entrepreneurship accelerator program that gave the business some funds, office space in downtown Detroit and advice from other entrepreneurs.
“It’s really been a huge summer for us, and we are really excited to see where that takes us into the future,” Wright said.
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