I was a very dedicated student in college. This is nothing to be ashamed of, hell I think I’ve even leveraged the situation to my advantage – nothing gets the pants off a woman quicker than telling her you were the 5th and 6th grade Lakeside Elementary School spelling bee runner-up or listing the first nine digits of Pi (3.14159265) from memory. Although not everyone is a fan of hitting the books, one thing is certain as finals week approaches – you gotta study to get by. For many students the best way to prepare for a test is by forming a study group. Ideally, these groups provide a comfortable social environment to share ideas and notes and prepare for exams. Unfortunately, most study groups get too cozy as kids begin to lose focus and ultimately end up unprepared for the test. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a study session where every member pitches in and all participants walk away with a stronger knowledge of the course material? One website is making this possible one student at a time.
Coursehero.com is a social learning network that links students, professors and anyone with academic interests to the tools they need to succeed. Coursehero (http://www.coursehero.com/) is similar to Facebook except instead of sharing “Which early 1990’s WWF Superstar are you?” quizzes, members can exchange class notes, flip through textbooks, and form interactive study groups. The study buddies and classmates you find on Coursehero are no nonsense students who have one goal and one goal alone in mind, protect that GPA… period. Their objective can be summed up with a little learning aid called the mnemonic device: A.B.A.M.N, or As By Any Means Necessary. This is not to say that you need to be a genius to benefit from Coursehero, but it does cater to the dedicated student. Let’s say you happen to miss a class and weren’t able to get notes from a certain lecture, Coursehero allows you to connect with fellow students from that class and see the notes that they uploaded to share. You are free to message classmates to see if they are interested in studying together and who knows what kind of funky relationships can blossom from there.
The site also provides outlines for papers, test study guides, course syllabi, and even actual student essays. Coursehero members can upgrade their account for access to over 500,000 exams, homework assignments, outlines, essays, and other materials that should be more than enough to make the grade. With Coursehero around, school is cool again and bookworms everywhere are very appreciative.
