With legislation passed unanimously at University Park Undergraduate Association’s first meeting of the year on Aug. 29, funding was allocated to improve the Off-Campus Housing Database website.
Receiving a budget of $8,000, the University Park Undergraduate Association plans to use $6,000.
The $6,000 will be used to pay the coder hired by UPUA.
Once completed, the database is said to be much more effective in helping students find potential roommates and apartment listings. If everything goes as planned, the database could also see expansion among Commonwealth Campuses. In theory, this could help students.
With a student body as large as Penn State, there needs to be a website that can be navigated efficiently by students to aid housing issues. A website that makes finding housing easier for students is a good investment by UPUA.
However, the website that is currently in place is not well-known.
Many students don’t know that there is a specific Penn State housing website. So when $6,000 is being shelled out for this project, it would be huge waste, if students don’t even know it’s there to utilize.
There should be more publicity accompanying this new, $6,000 project.
On top of that, UPUA should ensure that this website will include all realty groups all over State College and allow independent landlords to post, to ensure the most variety for students to choose from. It’s difficult to navigate through all of these different sites and understand exactly what’s available.
The most important part of this website should be that it is functional and well done. Six thousand dollars is enough money to ensure that this new project is top-rate. UPUA must make sure that as this website develops, they are monitoring how user-friendly it is, as well as how it’s being received by the student body.
In order for this large sum of money to not go to waste, students and realty companies both must be receptive to it.
Craigslist is often the go-to spot for students, chiefly because its page is easy to maneauver.
As much as technology is a part of everyday life, students will never utilize something if they can’t figure out how to use it in a fast and efficient way.
And if this is organized the right way, a site like this has the potential to be huge. Many from the Penn State community are always looking for sublets.
It’s often a scramble to find someone during the year or search for people to take over during the summer. Students turn to Facebook and other social media devices to ask around.
If all listings are in one secure place, then this could cut out all the middlemen.
