A collaboration between the Franks School of Education Living Learning Community (LLC)
and a senior design group from the Department of Informatics will provide a new resource
for incoming Trine University freshmen making the adjustment to college life.
“Trine’s Survival Guide” is located online at trinesurvivalguide.weebly.com. The new
website includes links to free time and off-campus activities, tips for Trine campus
housing, academics and technology such as Moodle and myPortal, and general advice
for living at Trine.
The website was one of three projects completed by the Thunder Tech senior design
team, which included informatics majors Brice Cooper from Angola, Indiana, Austin
Zachrich from Defiance, Ohio, Eric Peal from Imperial, Missouri, and Julian Ridgway
from Edon, Ohio.
The LLC, which is made up of first-year students, took on the project after developing
its mission statement: “We are striving to be great educators who make a positive
difference on our future students and the community we live in.”
“Our mission behind the app was directly toward impacting the community, specifically
Trine's,” said LLC member Grace Moyer, an elementary education/special education major
from Indianapolis. “We all had our own struggles with starting school, whether it
was what to bring, where our classes were or what to do for fun, so we identified
some of the most common and got to work.”
Teams from the LLC researched each of the topics covered on the site, providing content
for the final product.
“As freshmen we were still learning what is available on- and off-campus, so we thought
it would be a great idea to find information out and share it with others,” said Morgan
Wittmer, an elementary education major from Elkhart, Indiana. “There were specific
things we had no idea about, such as off-campus dining options along with their hours
of operation. Once we heard about them from other students on campus we became curious
and looked deeper.”
The website will be shared as a resource with future incoming freshmen at Trine.
“While this website will not erase all of the struggles of freshman year, I hope it
can ease some of them,” said Moyer.
Photo: Austin Zachrich, left, and Julian Ridgway demonstrate elements of the “Trine’s Survival
Guide” website to members of the university’s the Franks School of Education Living
Learning Community.
