Former ASU students create a website to help make course selections easier

Each semester, students blindly choose various classes in hopes of getting a course grade that maintains their GPA. Yet to some students' dismay, those classes may end up being some of the hardest classes they take throughout college.

Easy Class Guide, an online resource, is helping ASU students by easing the stress of finding classes and filling degree requirements.

ASU economics alumnus Ryan Miller and justice studies alumnus Dillon Osborn co-founded the ASU Easy Class Guide page on Facebook in 2011, after they realized students needed to communicate about classes to each other when advisers weren’t readily available.

“Students don’t really have a lot of options when it comes to classes to take,” Osborn said. “Advisers are a little busy.”

Osborn said he figured there had to have been an easier way students could see ratings on classes instead of using the short class descriptions on the ASU class search database.

“We felt as if there must be a better system to educate people on what classes they could take,” Osborn said. “You only get one sentence description of what a class is. Our website helps students.”

After their Facebook page reached over 6,000 members, Osborn and Miller said they noticed various faults on the Facebook page that could be fixed through the creation of a website.

“With this many people in communication, there must be a better way to organize everything,” Miller said. “People kept posting the same question. The ultimate goal was to make one central location where students could get their classes.”

After sixth months of research and development, Miller and Osborn launched easyclassguide.com.

When students visit the website, they can select "ASU" and then go through a process of selecting an upper- or lower-division class, general study requirement and a preference for online or in-person courses. The website then asks users to log in through Facebook, Miller said.

Miller said the success of the Facebook group and website was shocking at first, and still is.

“I was actually really surprised," Miller said. "People have come up to us and are truly happy and truly thankful for the service. They’ve found classes they didn’t even know existed. The feedback we’ve been receiving is really positive.”

Despite the widespread success among ASU students, the business partners said they will spend the near feature focusing on building their company and website before taking Easy Class Guide to other universities across the country.

“I think our grade goal is to be at universities across the countries.” Osborn said. “As of right now, we’re pretty set on improving our content here at ASU. It’s a great starting point.” 

Journalism sophomore Azucena Martinez said the site is extremely beneficial for all students at ASU who desire peer consultation before taking a particular class. 

"It's very beneficial because you're getting experience from upperclass members that you wouldn't be able to get from just a regular registration form from ASU," Martinez said. "It makes my life a little easier, because who wouldn't want an easy class?"

Related links:

Best ASU classes taken by The State Press Editorial Board

iCourses are a good alternative, but they are not 'Plan A'

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Reach the reporter at sgreene6@asu.edu or follow @thesydneygreene on Twitter.

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