The University of California, Santa Barbara's independent, student-run newspaper.
A new social networking website specific to the UC system was launched last month as a virtual unifier encouraging communication between students, professors and alumni through one-on-one video chats.
UCMeTalk has garnered 1,000 student fol- lowers so far and allows randomly selected indi- viduals from different universities to connect and build professional and casual relationships by extending their networking opportunities. The site, which went live on Oct. 22, was founded by Purdue University senior Nazir Katbi, UC Los Angeles senior Omar Hilmy, UC Irvine alumnus Anthony Liu and UC Riverside alumnus Siraj Soliman.
According to Katbi, the project manager of UCMeTalk, the group is ecstatic for the sites future in bringing together UC students through an innovative online approach. Katbi said the inspiration behind a UC social networking system came from the UC Davis pepper spray inci- dent last November as well as a desire to see individuals linked by their activism.
We were definitely inspired by what hap- pened at UC Davis last year, with regards to the pepper spray incident, Katbi said. Basically, my friends and I consider ourselves to be pretty much in the social activist loop, and we saw what happened when the pictures came out. At the same time, coincidently, we all had beentalking about starting a project before graduating, so I guess both of those two things intersected at that time. After a while, we realized, why not just wake up college students that dont know each other, together through networking and moving beyond just the typi- cal way to meet new people on campus? And one idea led to another, and it kind of all just exploded into UCMeTalk.
Students, alumni and campus faculty members who sign on to UCMeTalk must have valid UC.edu email addresses and are asked to specify their gender, college major and status.
Katbi said his favorite aspect of the website is the concept of matching up random people, much like the social network Chatroulette, but in a safe manner with fellow classmates from the same or different UC campuses.
For me, I really like the concept of getting on the website and being able to meet someone new, Katbi said. But at the same time, because we restrict it to the UC students, its still like someone in your realm of relevance. Its really cool to be able to meet someone you never couldve had access to, yet at the same time you have so much in common with.
Other features of the site include a point-awarding system where students can add or subtract a point from a users reputation after chatting and be eligible for weekly prizes depending on their amount of points. There is also a shout-out feature, similar to a status update, which allows users to reach out to peers via brief messages.
According to UCSB second-year communication major John Craig, the networking system is unique and appealing because it allows for campuses to share information and learn from each other.
I like the idea of it, Craig said. Its trying to link all the UC schools together, and for us students, its beneficial because were able to get our thoughts out and see how other UCs are running their schools versus how were running ours. Thats like a channelfor us to be able to trade information from school to school.
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The University of California, Santa Barbara's independent, student-run newspaper.