Three Boston University students have created a website to expedite the room swap process on campus, although some students said they have yet to see desired results.
On BURoomSwap.com, students can set up an account with their names and BU email addresses to find another student who wishes to switch rooms, said College of Communication senior Maurice Rahmey, one of the website’s creators.
“Our website allows students to browse all listings, search for your best match — which are matches that put students with the students who have what they want,” he said. “There is the option to ‘propose swap.’ It also shows the rooms the students are interested in and the students who are interested in my room.”
Rahmey created the website with Matt Auerbach and Guy Aridor, both College of Arts and Sciences juniors.
He said students input information, including their gender, current living situation and up to five room choices, and the search engine will attempt to find a match that fits.
“All the contact is done through the site — students facilitate communication through one click,” Rahmey said.
Some students said the website is a good idea, but that finding a swap is still difficult.
“It’s a really good idea and I’m surprised no one has thought of it before,” said Connor Cahill, a sophomore in the College of General Studies. “It is a much better option than trying to deal with BU housing. However, there are only around 15 listings for what I’m looking for, so it really hasn’t worked for me so far. Hopefully it will in the next few weeks, though.”
Chloe Director, a sophomore in COM, said she is also surprised that BU had not already created a similar website.
“I am so shocked at how tech-savvy BU is in other ways,” she said. “However, it is students [who] have created this easy system.”
Director said she thinks the site will make it far simpler to swamp rooms.
“Last year, I was very avid about swapping rooms, and I was able to do it, but it was a long and confusing three-way swap that I facilitated myself,” she said. “The site looks good.”
About 350 people have registered for the site, and there are two to three acceptances leading to swaps per day, Rahmey said.
“Ideally, we want the school to use our website instead of the current process for swapping dorm rooms which involves going to the housing office, filling out a card with students’ information and then browsing through a binder of other students searching for a new living arrangement,” Rahmey said. ”I won’t be here next year and the other creators will be working on other things. We want someone to maintain it.”
The website was created with the help of BU’s Digital Media club.
Rahmey said group swapping, or students swapping rooms with their roommates as a group, will begin this weekend.
“So far, we have only allowed individual swapping,” he said. “Students will make a listing with their roommate who will get an email confirming the room swap. Then students may swap with other groups.”
Rahmey said Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore has been very supportive of the website and introduced it to the BU Housing Office.
Brianna Vieira, a COM sophomore, said the website is user-friendly and easier than going through traditional BU channels.
“The process was cool, easy and convenient to use,” she said. “I didn’t know how to go about switching, so this is an easy way to get in touch with other students. I proposed a swap with a girl across campus and am hoping for the best.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
