Collegespeaks Blog

Hiya

Everyday we get tons of requests of courses and colleges which you want to add to Collegespeaks. It’s an excellent sign for us as it shows an increasing acceptance and enthusiasm for Collegespeaks.

We look forward to all your requests and will be glad if we could add every college, irrespective of its size, location and discipline, to Collegespeaks. Although we keep adding on to our database by making use of all known resources, but nothing better than coming straight from our members who are right there pursuing these courses.

One thing that I would like to add here is, please provide the complete name and location of the college, so that we can give you a quicker response in getting it added. You can also be a little extra nice by giving us some further information too, and you may never know we could be including a new addition to our points feature and start giving bonus points for that extra bit of information, the condition being it has to be right. Well, that’s only an idea which has struck me just now and there’s nothing official about it yet. But you guys, keep sending your college and course requests and don’t forget to reply back to those emails that we send for clarifying certain things about your requests.

Collegespeaks as a website and as a concept has also been listed on allthingsweb2.com. The response and the ratings received have been very encouraging and thanks a lot for rating us popular. We look forward to more of such feedbacks.

Firstly, tonnes of thanks to all those who have sent in their valuable feedbacks to our review on Alootechie.com. Of course, we keep boasting of our concept and layout, but it’s fantastic to see all those positive reviews and suggestions. Keep them coming so that we keep providing you a better experience with the site.

For most of us, higher studies and all related searches for higher studies end the moment we have cleared an entrance examination and have managed to secure a place in some institution. Then comes the phase II of our search, where we are running helter-skelter and trying to find a little more info about our would-be college. ‘That’s an altogether new place’ , ‘Where am I going to stay….and with whom’ , ‘Now I’ll have to hunt for a room partner…my fundamental requirements’ and more of these questions which keep us bewildered much much more than the pre-examination era. Colleges’ websites?? Forget them…they don’t come anywhere in the periphery of even our wildest imaginations when thinking of finding answers to these issues. Colleges’ websites can’t handle even the courses and infrastructure. Handling issues like these would be distant dreams. They don’t even find a place in the notice board of the college.

But are they really supposed to be that distant…at least they aren’t in the west. Although, in the Indian scenario, I guess colleges first need to provide updated information. I feel someone must also give these, otherwise considered secondary issues, a serious thought. For the moment, http://www.collegespeaks.com/ has made a good effort in collecting course information of different colleges. At least this website has saved the initial hassles of looking around for course info. The good thing is - it’s also providing a space to colleges with a space as good as the college’s own website. At least now, colleges can keep students updated by posting information on a hassle free site. So students, lets hope to see some activity here soon

Finally…..Collegespeaks.com is launched. It was in September last year, when the idea seeded. I was with my husband in one of those sarkari rest houses (with flora & fauna in abundance to the extent of thinking and even being creative at times, as you can see) – back from Glasgow – and never ceasing to think of newer ways and ideas of using the web more interactively.

What started as a platform to provide inside information about colleges, shared by students themselves, took the current shape with not just students but also colleges having a space for them. Collegespeaks.com, as it looks today, is the result of actually delving into a hundred thousand websites, some very good suggestions from Akshay & Chaula (for having the site development in safe hands) and of course, my husband, with his management insights & fundas. So here we are!!! Collegespeaks.com is now in closed beta version and has opened to colleges for registration. Over the year, Collegespeaks.com has built a sound database of colleges and their courses from across India. Not to mention, the innumerous complexities created by the lack of availability of information in our country and all the possible threats of which people have made us aware of, time and again. All this has only contributed to getting rid yet another hurdle and helped us tap yet another opportunity. We have now entered the next phase – a step ahead (or may be many steps ahead) since we started last September. Every day there is something new to learn and every passing day gives an increased confidence as we talk to more and more colleges. I’ll come back soon with more updates.

  Vidya Vyas
Collegespeaks.com