Go ahead and remove that futon from the end of your driveway. Dust off that business ethics textbook while you’re at it, too.
Thanks to a new student-developed website, members of the Penn State Behrend community are able to log online and exchange or purchase relevant textbooks, appliances, furniture and school supplies. The site, titled StudentTrade.net, also allows property owners to post and update student rentals.
“Think Craig’s List, but for students,” said Eric Wehler, a senior project and supply chain management major from St. Marys who helped plan the site. “It’s a service for the students and a way to help them save and make a little money.”
Wehler worked alongside fellow students Zach Reott and Scott Klein to develop the website as part of a class project for their MIS 430: Systems Analysis course.
“My course requires that students work to identify real problems and design a solution,” said Ido Millet, professor of management information systems and the instructor for the course.
When it came time to map out a project, Wehler said he had the perfect idea.
“I’ve had this idea for about 18 months or so,” he said. “I always feel like it’s hard to sell back your books after you purchase them, or you do not get much for them. I said, ‘How can we get more money back for the students? Why can’t we connect the students directly?’”
After hearing the idea, Millet agreed that it would fit the assignment nicely. Wehler partnered up with Klein, a senior project and supply chain management major, and Reott, a senior software engineering major who programmed the site. StudentTrade.net officially launched Dec. 12, complete with sections for books, furniture, appliances, rental properties and school supplies. To make things easier, the books forum is broken up into four sections: Black School of Business, School of Engineering, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and School of Science.
Membership to the site is free. Penn State Behrend students can sign up by visiting http://studenttrade.net/.
In the future, Wehler said he would like to expand site membership to other schools, including Gannon University, Mercyhurst University and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. To help facilitate that process, a built-in “Request School” form is included on the site.
“Ultimately, we’d love to have 100 users or so by the end of the spring semester,” Wehler says. “It is a self-sustaining website, but we have to make sure that we have a mass amount of users if this is to work.”