Starting a new year as freshers can be daunting for several students, especially student who enrolled in high ranked university. According to Quora, a popular question-and-answer site, we found there is particular question that has been asked and here is the answer:
Which pretty much the cure is to maintain a good balance in academic and social life. However, this is not a simple task for some students. Take an example, not everyone has extrovert personality which made them easily mingle with new people. Some students perhaps find that communicating with strangers difficult and take a lot of energy. Or, students who came from different cultural background (especially international students), etc.
These issues raise a concern inside the university. Many attempts are provided by the university to make sure the new students welcomed. From providing a lot of clubs and activities or hosting several parties. But is that enough? Is it accessible to every students?
For example, the orientation weeks always have a limitation on time (it is only for several days) and sometime it was difficult to get into the follow up. And how about students with less unfortunate background, or people with low self-esteem?
Is there something that we could do to connect those people?
In the search of this problem, we found some interesting project, hosted by University of Chicago. Using alternate reality games (ARG), they manage to deliver a good impression and made the students diffuse easily to their new environment. Here, we found some good key-point from this project. they use persona and set aside their social identity for awhile, in order to achieve the end goal. This is good way to start as they actually collaborate with people without bothering to find their identity, thus building a genuine relationship in process.
So, how it relate to our project? This is where the fun starts. We try to build a platform, which helping the new students to embrace their new environment without any worry. This is why, we tend to minimize the initial registration and somehow, try to build relationship without looking on their background. Instead, they could build their relationship based on their hobby or something similar, which help to reduce their anxiety. Our team might not building the game, but our aim will remain the same, to build a safer environment for new students, to interact with others without worry. And not just that, through our platform, we could deliver a place where we are not bounded by the time. A perfect follow-up platform especially for clubs and societies. A network of students, by students and for students (through hobbies!)