Few things mark the advent of a new year at NYUAD like the flood of course reviews and last minute packing suggestions from eager freshmen into the student Facebook group Room of Requirement. Our community thrives digitally, which is ironic given the number of complaints about poor Wi-Fi connectivity made in the same Facebook group.

Flavia Cereceda, class of 2019, described her life at NYUAD as inseparable from social media and highlighted the range of information she obtains from it daily.

“Social media, especially Room of Requirement, is where I find out what is going on around campus. This can range from knowing that there is leftover cake from a SIG event at the Baraha to finding out about the latest policy change in the UAE,” said Cereceda.

However, with a growing student body, digital platforms that connect students are also expanding beyond Facebook groups like the Room of Requirement. An ongoing trend is the development of niche groups that cater to increasingly specific needs — the creation of NYUAD Forums for discussion and complaints, NYUAD Free & For Sale for the transaction of goods and not least the myriad anonymous Confession and Crushes pages for students to create their own Gossip Girl moments.

Most recently, three members of the class of 2018, Ali Abou El Atta, Mounir Khaled and Hazem Ibrahim, designed a new Course Review application for smartphones that allows students to leave reviews for particular courses and professors. Their application seeks to replace the current Course Review website. While still available online for NYUAD students, the Course Review website has not been updated for a long time, making students rely on either word of mouth or the Room of Requirement for course reviews.

“It was very obvious that the current Course Review site wasn’t working very well. We all knew it but no one did anything about it. So when Hazem reached out to me with the idea of building a new Course Review I was really excited; because it was something that the university really needed,” wrote Abou El Atta. “We really hope that this new app would make the process of choosing your classes hassle-free,” he added.

Students can use the app to review a course in three ways: choosing from a collection of phrases commonly used to describe courses and professors, using a scoring system from one to five or writing reviews. Professors receive a composite rating based on the reception of each of the courses they have taught, and an internal algorithm scores a professor based on their grading, the amount of work they assign and their overall performance. These ratings are illustrated by a thumbs-up symbol, a word descriptor and a numeric one as well.

The application has a minimalist logo with a violet and NYUAD torch theme. One may stumble upon occasional humor in the app as well, like this frightened Faiza the Falcon meme.

The app requires no authentication to download. All reviews are anonymous, which raises questions about the authenticity of the reviews. While the Room of Requirement lets students ask further questions of fellow reviewers and connect with them, the application is less personal.

When asked about authenticity of reviews on the app, Abou El Atta mentioned that the developers will first oversee the app to see how students use it. “We will be monitoring the app for the first semester. If it looks like this open structure is not working, we will add authentication to it,” wrote Abou El Atta.

Abou El Atta also noted that 75 students had signed up to test the application before they decided to roll it out for all students. For a platform that still has not been released, the Course Review app looks promising and could be the answer to NYUAD students’ semesterly course registration anxiety.

The application is currently available to iOS users only, but the trio plan to release the Android version soon. Other smartphone applications that help students navigate life at NYUAD are the NYUAD Fitness & Wellness app and the NYUAD GPA Monitor .

Just as the trio identified a need for an updated course review platform, Shaw Lu, Class of 2017, realized that there was a need for a GPA calculator that could efficiently calculate a student’s GPA as the student desired, for example as an annual GPA or a major-specific GPA.

“One day I asked my Career Development Center mentor about my official GPA. He pulled out a calculator and started punching numbers. I thought if this procedure had to be repeated by everyone from every class in every semester for every job/grad school application, it would cost too much time. So I wrote the NYU GPA Monitor app,” said Lu.

He added that the app took him two days to code and requires no maintenance at all. Unfortunately, Lu’s app only works on Apple devices but he is currently looking for volunteer developers who can make an Android version as well.

The Fitness & Wellness App, which was also coded by Lu, is now run by the Fitness Centre and can be accessed online. The app requires one to sign to with a netid and provides a comprehensive guide to the Fitness Centre. Students can book personal training appointments with trainers, view group fitness class schedules and also provide feedback to the Fitness Centre.

These smartphone applications also benefit students who choose to opt out from using social media but still want to crowdsource information from other students.