The StudyHall Social Network–No Teachers Allowed

As written for Business2Community

Succeeding as a student takes time, patience and most of all; dedication. For me, as for many others, studying was a pretty exhausting and dry process. While I loved the course I was studying (economics) and many of the topics were interesting and inspiring, at the end of the day, I would come away from college to my home study space and reflect on it all; alone. The only thing that kept me going was the day-to-day schedule of heading to lectures and keeping my eye on the goal- completing and passing my exams.

This is where the new social network, StudyHall, launched at TechCrunch Disrupt this week, seeks to offer a technologically advanced educational experience.

Even in my graduate school days, email was the only real technology available. Social? Collaboration? All that would have been incredible. Certainly, if something like StudyHall had been available to me, school would have been so much easier. Studying at home would have been a much less lonely, isolated process.

When I look back on my academic achievements I am of course proud of them, but I have a distinct memory of caffeine fueled nights, burning the midnight oil, struggling alone to try and make sense of a passage of text upon which I was to create a written or oral presentation.

StudyHall aims to eliminate this sense of isolation, giving students a support network to draw on, at any time of the day or night. The community’s key attributes include:

• A chance to meet-up online with my fellow students and work on group projects in a dynamic and fun way. Google docs and skype really never quite cut it. I have perused the StudyHall interface and it is amazing.
• A reduced study time, for sure. As they say, “A problem shared is a problem halved”. StudyHall certainly offers students the chance to get work done promptly, as any misunderstandings of the course materials can be quickly de-mystified by other students.
• The chance for me to compare and contrast my own study notes with other students in real time. I cannot emphasize enough how much this would have helped me. It can be a real boost to the confidence to know you are on the right track.
• The opportunity to help others. Stepping into the role of ‘teacher’ and assisting a fellow student who is struggling can be a rewarding learning experience. StudyHall provides you with this opportunity, and I am confident that students using this fun, virtual learning space will benefit from this interaction immensely.

Popular Social Networks Don’t Help Students

There is nothing more harmful to successful study than distraction. The biggest distraction of today? Social media, by far. I was fortunate to be studying in a time where social media was just starting out, hence it was not much of a distraction to my study.

Popular social network sites thus do nothing to help students.  I have observed the various ‘status updates’ on Facebook where students are up late, letting everyone know that they are struggling with exam prep. The comments in reply do nothing to provide genuine support.

If you love social networking and are a busy student, get on StudyHall. You will get the fun interaction as well as fantastic support for your studies.