Photo courtesy of syllabusrate.com.
ANNE RITZ
News Editor
Mid-semester brings about a stressful time for students. Choosing and registering for the right classes can be a daunting task. Syllabusrate.com has created a way for students to get an inside look into courses before deciding.
The website allows users to view, rate and upload syllabi. It was created by three University at Buffalo students: Bryan Krajewski, Keith Krajewski and Steve Krajewski. The brothers came up with the idea in December 2013 and Bryan, a junior business major, is the main operator of the site.
To upload a syllabus, students fill out a simple form that asks to create an account. After creating an account, the form asks for the course or section number, the professor’s name and the time of the course. The syllabus is rated out of five stars and the user is able to leave comments.
Bryan explained that the idea for the site came to him from personal experience when choosing classes.
“I was that student who would sign up for the maximum amount of credit hours per semester and then go to class, get the syllabus and drop almost half my course load and continue adding and dropping classes until I finally got a schedule I liked. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be awesome if students were able to view the syllabus ahead of time, so that they could find out everything they could possibly want to know before registering for the class?” he said.
The site has been slowly growing, and Bryan said that many students have participated right away.
“We have about 20 schools that have caught on,” he said. As far as page views, he explained that the site gets as many between a few hundred and a few thousand.
So far, Bryan has been receiving positive comments from users.
“We have had a lot of good feedback for the site. Most people say that it is very helpful when choosing what courses to take,” he said.
He is working to make the site a hub and a one stop spot for students. Several of the uploads are from the University at Buffalo, but Bryan explained that they receive syllabi from schools in other cities and states. There are a variety of majors but biology and biomedical sciences have been the highest used.
Syllabi from all majors are welcome, but Bryan said in the terms of service, users are asked to not uploaded copyrighted materials to the site.
Bryan has hopes that the site will continue to grow. He explained, during the first week of school, that he passed out about 5,00 flyers and created free t-shirts.
Though there are ads on the site, he said that they are only to make back their investment.
“We are really looking to help students,” he said. “We only have them [ads] in hopes to break even on our investment.”
For Bryan, this is a side project that contributes to his entrepreneurial interests and marketing.
“I think I will most likely continue the site after I graduate,” he said.
Two students who said they generally look to the course description to choose classes said that syllabusrate.com would be helpful for them.
“I mean it kind of would be useful because you get to see what the course is really about because the course description doesn’t give you much then it will let down your expectations once you take the course. I guess it would be useful if it does give you what does to expect,” said Melisa Zorer, freshman education major.
“I think it would be helpful because it will tell you if there’s too many tests or too many essays,” said Courtney Schmidt, freshman education major. “One of my classes was all essays and one was all tests, so then you can balance it.”