Sacramento State alumnus Javier Alvarado is paving the road to try and facilitate the access between students and professors through a mobile app called “My Professors.”
Alvarado created the first version of the app during his last few semesters at the university, where he graduated in December of 2015 with a degree in mechanical engineering.
“The ‘My Professors’ app allows students to quickly look up all of their professors’ office hours and contact information in one place,” Alvarado said.
When the app was first created, it was designed to only help students of the College of Engineering and Computer Science and available for Android users specifically.
Christian Moya, a recent electrical engineering graduate, said he heard about the app through fellow engineering students and decided to download it to test the quality.
After exploring the app for a few days, Moya said that it was very organized, easy to use and made every information of the availability of professors visible at the touch of a finger.
“It beats the hassle of having to go through your backpack and (syllabi) to try and find your professors office hours,” Moya said
Earlier in spring 2016, Alvarado said he was able to add a list of professors and other faculty and staff of the College of Arts and Letters to the app.
Alvarado also began working with Jasmine Murphy, interim director of the Academic Advising Center, to help make the app grow even further.
After some planning, Alvarado’s creation now has information on all professors from every department at Sac State.
The mobile version, which now includes Apple users, also has “Places” and Eateries” options, which means students can use it to look up hours of facilities like the Library, The WELL, and other restaurants on campus.
However the app has received only about 380 downloads since its inception.
“That’s not a huge number,” Alvarado said. “But when you consider that we have only targeted engineering students in previous semesters, I think it’s a good start.”
Briana Colsa, a freshman biology major, is among the many who had never heard of the app but happened to stumble upon it.
After downloading it, like Moya, she said the app is very organized and easy to use.
She said she is glad to have come across it in during her first semester because she feels it will be of great help throughout her future years here at Sac State.
“The short-term goal of this app is to just make this information easier to find,” Alvarado said. “The long-term goal is to actually encourage students to go to the office hours and increase the number of office hour visits per semester.”