This app can help you make friends in class

Ryerson student Taimur Malik has spent most of university not knowing “99 per cent” of his classmates.

“You know, I’ll recognize them by face, but I don’t know who they are, nothing about them,” Malik said.

That’s why the fourth-year financial mathematics student founded Juno, an app designed to help students get to know their classmates and people in the university community.

Available on iOS and soon to be released on Android, Juno allows Ryerson students to make “confessions,” comment on them and speak to the people in their different classes.

Malik hopes Juno will increase community engagement and enhance the university experience for Ryerson students.

“The whole point of … being in university is to meet new people, not just staying with your old clique from your high school or the people you meet on the first day,” Malik said.

Juno requires users to log in with a Facebook account and input their Ryerson emails to confirm they’re Ryerson students.

Users then get to see which of their Facebook friends are using the app and can join feeds with other students.

The app is split into a main Ryerson feed and separate course feeds.

The main Ryerson feed allows students to make anonymous posts and for people to comment on them, much like the Spotted at Ryerson Facebook page.

Users can also add separate course feeds by searching up course codes for classes in which they are enrolled. They can then look through a list of their classmates and share files using Google Drive.

“Now, students can finally know who their classmates are,” Malik said.

Malik is considering expanding the app to include student group feeds as well, because he was approached by groups who said they have too many members for them to interact easily through a Facebook group.

Another feature of the app allows users to link their Instagram or Snapchat accounts, allowing students to make further connections with fellow classmates and university students.

Malik hopes to expand the app beyond the Ryerson community and allow students at different colleges and universities to interact with each other as well.

“[We are] starting with classes, community, and then eventually interconnecting all communities around Ryerson,” he said.