An independent team of students has created an events website with the hope of creating a more organized social scene on campus. The website, entitled swateventsaround.me, allows students to quickly add a pin on a campus map to advertise their event.
Team member Jason Jin ’20 explained why he thought creating the website was necessary.
“This was pretty much my idea. I was frustrated with the way that the events system worked here. We have no central or universal events list. We have a lot of flyers everywhere, a bunch of email spam, and sometimes, there’s Facebook events that people share with you. So I wanted to create a universal system that everyone can post their stuff to,” he said.
The team, which includes Won Chung ’18, Bunn Buraparat ’20, William Lee ’20, and Tristan Cates ’20, started developing the website at the PennApps Hackathon at the University of Pennsylvania about a month ago. A hackathon is an event during which a team of programmers typically work on a single project for the duration of a whole weekend. Jin also mentioned that since then, the team met almost every night to fully develop the website’s features.
To register an event on the website, all a student needs to do is complete a short form filling out the date, time, and description of the event. After the team approves the event within 24 hours, a small pin is dropped on a campus map for other users to see.
Won Chung further explained the mechanics behind the website.
“For the front end of the website, we use CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. For the back end, we use Google Firebase API, Google Analytics, and Google Maps,” he said.
While Chung is also the Chair of Internal Affairs in SGO, he mentioned that SGO supports the website and will advertise it to students.
He later added the extent to which the administration will control the website.
“We approve the forms based on the guidelines Andrew Barclay gave us. Basically, no alcohol,” he said. Andrew Barclay is the Assistant Director of Student Life, Leadership, and Engagement.
According to Chung, the website will remain under the control of students, and OSE will transfer a master list of events to the team in the future. In the future, OSE emails announcing events will be phased out while the current website will be integrated with the college’s main website.
As of publication, the website has averaged around 130 users and 20 pins per week. Following integration to the college’s home website and further advertisement, the website’s creators hope that the website will further increase community members’ access to campus events.
Students create swateventsaround.me website to streamline social scene
