September 19, 2017
Eric Friedberg
Students who have gone through the process of finding a roommate or a new apartment might know how tedious it can be, especially when they have to fish through online advertisements.
But moving out doesn’t have to be inconvenient now, thanks to the UCCS Accommodation Facebook page.
Last year, senior international business major Alyssa Peterson founded the UCCS Accommodation Facebook page to help students avoid the hassle of checking multiple platforms to find roommates and housing during the semester.
Peterson’s inspiration for the public group page came from her own house searching experiences.
“Personally, I have moved multiple times to different locations in the middle of semesters and have found Facebook an easy place to start my search,” said Peterson.
The page centralizes advertisements from UCCS students looking for roommates and housing onto one page. Locations, prices and photos of local houses and apartments are featured on the page, which currently has 389 members.
“Overall activity and requests to join the group have been increasing daily, so I believe that it is beneficial, mainly because it is easy to access community online,” said Peterson.
One of the main goals of UCCS Accommodation is to weed out uncertain and potentially misleading advertising sites, according to Peterson. Students can also use the page to list and find job offers, tutors and textbooks.
Since the page is open only to UCCS students, those who use the page may feel safer in assessing whether an advertisement is legitimate, according to Peterson. The page could also be helpful for students searching for a compatible roommate, since it is easy to view if people share similar interests.
Students ultimately control the conversation, said Peterson. They can post, comment and respond to each other on the page, while Peterson oversees the general activity.
“Anybody who has already been approved to join the group can moderate and approve others to join. Overall, it is a student-run page,” said Peterson.
Computer science major Kilaru Divya has used Peterson’s Facebook page in the past and found it to be helpful.
“The site is really appreciated. It helped me with finding good roommates from the college,” said Kivya.
Peterson believes that it is important to help connect students with others in their community, and one of the most important factors in doing that is by building trust.
“I would like to see UCCS Accommodation continue to help people connect with their community through easing the pain of searching for roommates and finding trustworthy accommodation,” Peterson said.
Peterson regularly finds her page to be more active during the beginning and end of every semester, which is filled with students trying to fill or find housing situations before classes begin.
Peterson thinks that this site is heading in a direction of community-based “Facebooking,” where people are coming together to not only help themselves but also help others out in a safe and trustworthy environment.
“Social media sites like Facebook become more beneficial as engagement and awareness increases about availability of such useful tools and communities on those sites,” said Peterson.
In the future, Peterson plans on finding other online channels to host UCCS Accommodation due to the limitations that the Facebook layout entails.
“Adding links to other student specific (accommodation) websites and pages could also be helpful,” said Peterson.
For more information on UCCS Accommodation, search “UCCS Accommodation (University of Colorado Colorado Springs)” on Facebook.