University of Wisconsin junior Alvin Kang and UW sophomore and Nithilan Kalidoss launched Madclasses April 6, a website that uses student enrollment information to recommend potential courses, according to Kang.
After providing an email, the site asks students to upload a document with a list of classes the user has taken, semester of enrollment and credit standing at the time to tailor results. The website currently includes information for 10,370 courses and 127 users, along with 199 reviews.
Kang said the idea for Madclasses initially started when Kang realized that as a computer science major, students with later enrollment times — which are based on academic program, class standing and number of credits — can find it difficult to get into certain classes, due to their competitiveness.
“I just thought it’d be great if there could be a service where users can submit how hard it is to get into a certain class with a certain number of credits.” Kang said. “Then I realized that if you have that data, you could use it for something much more like reviewing courses and more.”
By compiling data submitted by students, Madclasses not only displays course eligibility, but visualizes what kinds of classes their peers have enjoyed, and what their class standing was when they enrolled to help students decide for which classes they have a better chance of securing a seat.
Kang said he began trying to find a partner to work alongside to bring the project to surface, and that’s when he found Kalidoss. The two initially met on a Discord server and began collaborating.
Kang works as the front end of the operation, including designing the exterior look and framing the website interactions, while Kalidoss’ main focus was the back end, which entails the coding aspect of the website, including the login authentication, Kalidoss said. In addition to data individual students submit upon signing up for Madclasses, Kalidoss said they received data from the Office of the Registrar.
Notably, Madclasses does not store student grade information, according to Kalidoss. Madclasses exclusively uses data to aid students with course selection. The only grade information used is to determine which classes were dropped or labeled as transfer credits. After calculations are made, student-submitted documents are immediately deleted, according to a written statement from Kang.
“I think some people may have some apprehensions about entering their course plan with the grade,” Kalidoss said. “It doesn’t ever get written to a folder and those are never stored.”
