A senior cyber security major, Adam Bairos, has created the first website for UCM students to communicate that is run by students and students only.
“There is no place for UCM students to communicate with other UCM students that isn’t owned by the school. I don’t think the administration needs to get involved. I think it’s better to have students run things.”
The website is called “UCM Overflow,” and Bairos said the main purpose is for students to talk about school, while having the ability to post about anything they want.
“The goal is to get everyone off Facebook and off of Reddit and kind of like, re-focus back on the small community instead of the top 100 websites,” Bairos said.
Bairos said a great feature of the website is the anonymity for the users, which is why he said it is better than Facebook groups.
“If you have a Facebook post and you don’t have your privacy settings made correctly, then Grandma Stenson gets all that information, or your mom sees that you’re trying to go to a party tonight or something,” Bairos said. “There’s just something to be said about semi-anonymity. I’m a big fan of privacy. I’m a big fan of being able to not share your thoughts with Facebook on some project that you’re making; there’s just no need.”
Ryan Evans, a senior computer science major, said this website could be useful for students to talk freely about anything and to make new friends.
The website used to be just for the computer science majors, but now is for everyone. Barios said he expanded it to get more people on the site and that it would be useful for students of all majors to communicate.
“I think a way to communicate with other students without being monitored by faculty is important for building friendships and self-expression,” Evans said. “I think it has potential to be useful for students, but like most websites, its value is directly tied to its user base. The last time I was on it, it was pretty WCM-centric, but I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t grow.”
Nicholas Lueck, a sophomore computer engineering major, has been on the website for two weeks. He said he sees the website being more of a way to pass the time.
“For being on it for two weeks, I have seen some activity come and go. Which means I have hopes that the site will grow, but I don’t think it will unless it gets some sort of publicity,” Lueck said.
Duane Joseph Jr., senior civil engineering technology, said he has not heard of UCM Overflow but said it could be useful for freshman and sophomore students who are new on campus.
“I wouldn’t really (need the website) since I’ve been here for a while and don’t really need to know much about things on campus,” Joseph said.
Lueck said he agreed that the website could be useful to freshman students.
“I could see this site helping them in getting more involved on campus,” he said. “The regular UCM page does a decent, not so decent job in relaying information about campus, so this site could be used to amplify that information because it takes input from all students who use the site.”
Bairos said the website it also a great way to connect with other people on campus without being in a specific group, such as fraternities or sororities.
“If you’re in not in Greek life, you can’t have that…it gets you engaged with a group of people where if you’d rather go online than some party, that’s available,” he said.
Bairos said there is 97 registered users on UCM Overflow right now. He has been sending out mass emails for the past few days to all UCM students, trying to reach out to the whole school.
“Before I made this, there is no source that I have found because my first thought wasn’t to make it; it was just to join what was already available but there isn’t,” he said.
To join UCM Overflow, go to ucmoverflow.com and register with your student email.