MyEdu helps plan classes, adviser says the site is 'a waste of one's time'

Planning for college is a mind-numbing process that does not end once accepted into a school. Picking out courses, learning about professors, finding internships and making sure to have all the bases covered are parts of the process.

To help students cope with the whole experience, MyEdu, the company behind the Pick-A-Prof service, has launched a new suite of products designed to help students stay on track and help ensure academic success.

“Basically, we’re here to help students plan out their degree from day one and help the undecided find a degree,” said Karen Holst, vice president of marketing and business development for MyEdu.

MyEdu touts four new services in addition to the Pick-A-Prof, including a graduation road map, schedule planner, academic dashboard and education network.

At the cost of $10 or $20 a year, students can use MyEdu to research the classes they need, the grade distribution of professors and class rosters as well as to connect with advisers, professors and other students with similar academic interests.

“With our services, we’re trying to give students a fuller picture of what to expect by giving them the information on how to fill out your degree requirements so that you can graduate on time and in budget,” Holst said. “We’re not looking to put college advisors out of business. We’re trying to work with them to benefit the students.”

But the service hasn’t convinced every student and professor of its merits.

“Personally, I think it’s a waste of one’s time, energy and money,” said Lauren Kinzer, director of advising services for the School of Journalism. “How would they know exactly what courses you would need to graduate or exact numbers and statistics of each class?”

Many IU students who were unfamiliar with MyEdu or its predecessor Pick-A-Prof were wary, but interested in the new service.

“I would actually use MyEdu because I would like to get a job outside of the country, and having the connections would definitely help,” sophomore Chris Merritt said. “You go to college to get ahead in life, so you use any resource that’ll help you out.”

Kinzer said many of the services that MyEdu offers, such as graduation requirements and internship opportunities, are available online at the Office of the Registrar or the particular school’s Web site. While IU does not have ratings of classes and professors, Kinzer argued that a person’s experience in a course can vary and cannot be shoehorned into a general category of good or bad.

“IU’s advisers would know their students and curriculum more closely than a site that gets its info from statistics,” Kinzer said. “Students should just let us do our job and work with us to plan their college careers.”