College Twist has involved Cal State Fullerton in its new social networking application to assist students in becoming more aware of events and involved around campus.
Representatives of the Housing Services and Residence Life at CSUF supplied the developers of College Twist with information about clubs, greek life and landmarks around campus.
In order to expand the social media app, College Twist developers Patrick Daleen and Brandon Forschino requested colleges write an essay and they picked the top five; CSUF was one of them.
Forschino and Daleen first developed the idea for College Twist when they were attending college.
The app was started in 2009 at Florida Atlantic University, Daleen and Forschino’s alma mater, before expanding to four other schools in Florida, three in the Midwest and eventually five in California.
College Twist allows users to create profiles and interact with current, past and future college students.
It is broken down into eight main categories that range from Greek life to academics and everything in between.
The app uses a “heat map” to show different spots around campus that have the most student traffic.
The maps show app users as anonymous but they are able to post discussion topics on their profile.
Even though Facebook was popular among their peers, Daleen and Forschino said the social networking site lacked the necessary tools for students to be aware of events happening around campus and the community.
“The problem that we found, and also from hearing college students, is Facebook is so unorganized and just so cluttered,” said Forschino.
Forschino added that College Twist is different because it is centered around the individual colleges and everything is campus related.
Because developers of College Twist cannot travel to every university and explore the campus and community, they rely on campus representatives to provide in-depth analysis on the landmarks and social life of their respective universities.
Jim Daleen, Patrick Daleen’s father, shared their vision and became a mentor for them along the way. Besides guiding them through the project, the elder Daleen became one of the first investors in the project.
College Twist also partners up with local businesses to offer promotions exclusive to users of the mobile app.
“If a restaurant, a big famous college restaurant, is trying to promote deals, we allow them to post their deals through our daily deal announcement we post each week,” Forschino said.
Forschino and Daleen said they hope College Twist can facilitate the college experience for students and eventually expand to fit the needs of every university across the nation.
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