It’s 10:30 on a Wednesday night, there is a final in the morning, and the study guide has become beyond stressful. It’s too late to contact the teacher and for whatever reason no one in the class is looking at their email. The options are running out and fast. At this rate, the sun will be up and it will be time to take the test. Many students are in this type of situation in classes throughout their college careers. Two veterans of this educational crisis have come to the rescue with their cutting edge note-sharing program: StudySoup.
StudySoup is now available for courses at SDSU, where students can register to purchase notes or consider applying as a note-taker.
Created in 2014 by Sieva Kozinsky and Jeff Silverman, two ultimate frisbee students attending the University of California, Santa Barbara, this program started as a simple conversation. Kozinsky majored in technology management and environmental science while Silverman majored in computer science, but even in different majors both had the common problem of how much was missing from their classroom experience. From that moment on, they decided to create a project using their skills of an entrepreneur and programmer to bring a better option to their fellow students.
We wanted to take the experiences we have seen in study rooms and libraries and bring it online. We wanted to connect students electronically,” Kozinsky said.
The emphasis was to manifest a peer-to-peer marketplace where students sitting in the same lectures were providing notes to one another. This served as a more effective alternative to professors or aids who weren’t always available or didn’t fully understand the source of students confusion. These uploads can be just notes from that weeks lecture, a study guide, or a mixture of the two. Depending on the amount required, the price for students accessing it ranges from $7 to $15.
Students who post must undergo a three step intensive screening process to ensure quality: a job application, the uploading of notes for review and an interview. Kozinsky believed high quality was the only way to provide 100 percent satisfaction, and it became the backbone for their undeniable success.
Not only are employees able to make a steady income of $800 to $1,000 while being full time students, they are also doing it by capitalizing on their educational skills rather than wasting them on other miscellaneous jobs.
They have established their own business which has become their full time career, have set up shop in San Francisco, and have expanded across the nation to schools such as UCLA, Brown University, and University of Oregon.
Within the next year, they even hope to add more components to the site that will help students get the most out of their education.
“Start now because the day you start is the day you start learning, and you learn the most at the edge of uncertainty,” Kozinsky said.
