New focuses on SCULife: calendar, communication

By Emily Espinosa

After its recent overhaul, the Web site SCULife.com is even easier to use and offers more resources to Santa Clara students.

Created last year by alumnus Conrad Egusa, it began as an idea to create an online marketplace and evolved into a means of creating opportunities for communication between students.

The site houses constantly updated information regarding events on campus and student forums as well as other sections that encompass nearly every aspect of Santa Clara life.

The Campus Life section includes a detailed running calendar that includes meetings, lectures, performances, sporting events, tutoring opportunities, academic deadlines and more.

"We've changed our focus to promoting our calendar. We're reaching out to all the organizations around campus to create a central source for information online," said Rosie Tolentino, one of the site's administrators, on one of the biggest changes that has been made to the site. She further explained that they hope students who are looking for a sporting event on the calendar, for instance, will notice the other on-campus events listed for that day.

"I feel that I can benefit from using SCULife.com because there are lots of different events and things on the Web site," said sophomore Lauren Elmets. "It can keep me updated with what's going on on-campus and important things that I might be interested in."

The site also houses its own version of "Rate My Professor," where all students can share their experience with a professor for the benefit of others when signing up for classes.

The Discussion Board section is based on subcategories that include Academic, Athletic, Social, Future Students and Questions. Students can add to any ongoing thread or bring up any topic that they feel is worthy of discussion.

The Future Students section geared towards high school students, was creating by site administartors in hopes of creating a "portal of communication" between incoming students and current students and promote involvement on campus among the future generations of Santa Clarans.

In the Marketplace section, students have the opportunity to post or access information about items for sale, available jobs, housing and even facilitate an online textbook swap.

"I also like the whole blogging thing," added sophomore Keith Cowdrey in reference to the Discussion Board. "That's nice because you can know what's going on and you can give feedback. I definitely like the 'Rate My Professor' that's attached to it [also]. That's nice because it's right there."

The Web site offers the option to "Connect with Facebook," making it possible to access information from SCULife.com from the popular social networking site and share it with Facebook friends. By adding it as an application on Facebook or by "Becoming a Fan," one can receive messages from the SCULife team including tips and updates regarding campus life.

The improved format of the site includes a home page and underlying sections that are easier to view and even more simple to interact through. The site now features a Facebook-like news feed with updates about what events are coming up and what sections users have added to recently.

"I definitely like this setup a lot more than the SCU normal login, because it's more like everything is all up to date by the hour, and it also has links to my e-mail and everything ... It's a lot more accessible," said Cowdrey.

Goals for the creators of SCULife.com are to create a resource for the university that is constantly improving, give back to students by donating 10 percent of the site's revenue to scholarship funds and empower students by involving them in the site.

"SCULife thrives on student involvement," explained Tolentino. "The more people we have using the Web site, the more it will grow. It will gain features to better serve the student community, and it will receive more advertisement support from local businesses."

Tolentino elaborated that if students engage in the site, they will benefit greatly in return.

"In addition, 10 percent of all the income we get from advertisement goes towards our student scholarship fund. The more students participate, the more we can do for them and for the rest of the community."

Contact Emily Espinosa at eespinosa@scu.edu or (408) 551-1918.