You’re a first-year and you’ve just received the all-important roommate assignment. What do you do now? Answer: Find your roommate on Facebook and do some pre-move-in stalking.
This year, Eastern University has conceived a whole new way to not just meet your roommate but also interact with the whole campus via Facebook. While the app seems to have its glitches, such as the public Facebook profile pictures not matching up, it seems to be an effective way to communicate with other Eastern students.
“I found my roommate!” said Taylor Halteman, a first-year using the app.
“It’s definitely a cool idea, in spite of the fact that it didn’t work at all when I first tried to use it,” wrote Andy Pearl on the Eastern app.
Initially, there was concern over how many questions the first-years put out before freshman orientation, but app-users soon learned that not only can they ask questions, they can answer them. By the time freshman orientation rolled around, what was not answered by face-to-face interactions was answered on Facebook.
Taking it a step farther, students also posted their schedules in an effort to connect with fellow classmates and get some idea about what their new professors are like from students who have previously taken their classes.
“So far it’s cool because it lets everyone know how things are [around Eastern],” says Blair Simon. “It’s good.”
Check out the app and also find a “community” for nearly everything. From NCIS to amusement parks and everything in between, students have the opportunity to turn their cyberspace interests into friendships.
In keeping with Facebook’s news feed format, users can post statuses and ask questions, much like one would do on a public profile. You can also search for people you’d like to “friend” who are also using the program.
The “People You Might Know” sidebar further builds communities based on interests people have expressed within the confines of the application.
Eastern on Facebook seems to be very popular in bringing our small community closer together, a much needed tool in connecting in faith, reason and justice.