Navigating Dartmouth’s major requirements can be a complicated and overwhelming process. Released in early March, the app Classm8 helps students track progress towards their degree and select courses each term.
The new app is the brainchild of Ashkaan Mahjoob ’23, who said the idea came from his own personal difficulties with finding course requirement information on different department websites.
“It would’ve been so much easier if everything was in one place, so my dad and I started talking, and [we were] like, ‘Oh, what if we could create this app that could help out Dartmouth students?’” Mahjoob said, adding that they started working on the app’s functionality and design with a team of developers from his father’s company last year.
According to Mahjoob, the app aggregates all of the classes a student has taken thus far and ranks majors and minors based on the number of remaining classes a student would need to complete them. Users can also “heart” specific majors and receive class recommendations tailored to those majors’ requirements, he said.
“You can discover new majors based on things you're already interested in,” Mahjoob said. “I briefly considered [a] QSS [major] because I had no idea that I [had] fulfilled five QSS requirements.”
Classm8 is currently available on Apple and Google Play’s app stores, as well as in a web format. According to Mahjoob, over 500 users have signed up thus far.
“We’ve had [the most] traction with the Class of 2025,” Mahjoob said, adding that the second largest cohort of users is the Class of 2023, which he attributed to the deadline for major declaration at the end of students’ fifth term.
Mia Bagatourian ’23 said she downloaded Classm8 after hearing about it through word of mouth. As a self-proclaimed organized person, she thought the app would be helpful in planning for the future.
“I had already declared my major when I started using it, but it has been super helpful in seeing how many more requirements are necessary for my major and planning the classes I want to take in later terms,” Bagatourian said.
She added that while the current interface is useful, “it could be super helpful if there was a way to see professor reviews or even feedback from major advisors.”
While the app only contains information about Dartmouth classes, the app’s development team has plans to expand to other institutions. According to its website, Classm8 has created an ambassador program to help bring the app to more college campuses across the nation. Each potential university can have a maximum of two ambassadors whose tasks include posting about Classm8 on social media and conducting market research.
Peyton Smith ’23, a Classm8 ambassador, said the team recently finalized a partnership with Orange Coast College in California, and hopes to expand operations to other Ivy League institutions and University of California schools.
“We’ve been researching hundreds of schools all across the country, looking into the types of [application programming interfaces] they have [and] seeing how compatible their course schedules are with the app,” Smith said.
According to Smith, the team has marketed Classm8 via its website and through social media to reach more Dartmouth students. They also hope to partner with local Hanover restaurants and businesses to offer student users discounts, incentivizing students to register, she said.
