As University of Wisconsin students begin to scrutinize next semester's timetable, a website recently launched for the campus could cut down the time spent adjusting — and readjusting — their schedules.
Schedulizer.com allows students to select the classes they wish to take from a list of all courses offered in a given semester, and then generates all the schedules that would be possible when considering the various lecture and discussion section meeting times.
"Schedulizer really helps you do something you can't really do yourself efficiently," said Ross Skaliotis, the website's creator. "It is really great at showing you all your possibilities quickly."
Skaliotis, who attends Ithaca College in Ithaca, N.Y., said he is familiar with the stresses of sifting through the timetable when preparing a schedule and originally developed the site in 2004 while attending Cornell University. Within the first two weeks of Schedulizer's debut, he said, several hundred Cornell students were accessing the site.
"Now about two-thirds of Cornell [students] use it," Skaliotis said. "And it's only recently that we've been expanding to other schools. Right now we're focusing on Big Ten schools."
Other schools where the service is currently available include Ohio State University, Penn State University, Louisiana State University, Binghamton University, the University of Notre Dame and Ithaca College.
With the expansion of Schedulizer to more and more universities, Skaliotis said he is hopeful that additional features will be added to the site.
Currently, the site offers several sorting options that aid in the production of the student's ideal schedule. A user, for example, can set controls including not having class on Fridays, starting later in the day or working around midday conflicts.
But according to Skaliotis, that is only the beginning.
"There are actually several things Schedulizer could go hand in hand with," Skaliotis said. "One is rating classes, another is rating professors and another is book swapping."
Right now, however, Skaliotis said he is focusing on adding more schools to his service list.
Like any start-up business, though, Skaliotis said his work with the website takes up a lot of time and energy, especially while also managing schoolwork.
His business model, which caters to college students whose everyday routines he is familiar with, fits the model of student entrepreneurship that more and more students are getting involved in.
Some UW students have had similar success with start-up businesses through websites, including Kristen Berman, founder of NetNerds, and Ben Fiechtner and Troy Vosseller, founders of Sconnie Nation.
"I had a problem that I knew other students had, too, and based [NetNerds] off of that," Berman said of her start-up company. "It was frustrating … and I created something to solve that problem."
And according to Anand Chhatpar — chairman of the local company BrainReactions, which harnesses students' ideas to market to companies — student innovation such as this is not unexpected, considering students' bountiful imaginations.
"[Students] are at the forefront of technology and trends," he said. "That allows them to be on the horizon, pushing the limits when it comes to innovation. They're naturally better suited for coming up with new ideas."
