[media-credit name=”Screenshot courtesy of cas360.qu.edu” align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) is launching a new website that allows students to be more independent in their studies.

The website, cas360.qu.edu, is designed for all students within arts and sciences. Students can use it to read news and blogs, plan their courses and perhaps most impressively, nearly instantaneously set up meetings with professors.

The site is meant for both academic growth and career growth. While students can contact their professors and prepare for their next semester of classes, they can also find internships and careers. All of the sites frontpage is devoted to advice blogs, internship opportunities and other helpful ideas.

“We want (CAS360) to be the first place students go when they have a question,” CAS Career Development Director Rick DelVecchio said. “You can find the answer yourself or have the same resources as your advisor or professor to find the answer.”

The website itself is designed to be easy to use. Students are able to press on a picture of their professors or advisors and then click to schedule an appointment. The student may then press a date and see all available times for the meetup to be made. Then, the student confirms the appointment and a receipt is sent to their QU email. Overall, setting up a meeting can be rapid.

“Before, it was hard to have all the information so quickly and fully,” DelVecchio said. “Now students can have the same set of information that professors have. It’ll be good for both sides.”

The site is also customizable. Students can sign in with their QU accounts and tailor the site to meet their needs. They can set what emails and blogs they want sent to their QU emails, meaning students will be able to only see messages they want to see. This can be micromanaged right down to whether you see emails for QU in DC or QU in LA. Students can decide whether to see full-time, part-time, volunteer, internship or even job shadows. News can be sorted by major or industry.

The site was the result of a three-year effort to improve student-advisor communication. When CAS decided that the site was the way to go, they commissioned a company named UConnect to make a site that would give students a strong platform to make their plan.

For now, the website is only for College of Arts and Sciences, as it was an internal plan. However some students expressed a desire for it to expand to their colleges.

“This seems like a really good idea,” Max Fortier, a Class of 2021 3+1 finance major, said. “Contacting your professors can be a pain. I really hope School of Business does something similar because that would save everybody a headache.”

Contacting professors is not the only major function of the website. It can also be used for networking with alumni, setting up mock interviews and learn about potential internship or career opportunities.

“The site will be constantly changing. At the department level, it will constantly be changing and evolving to best meet student demand,” DelVecchio said. “The website will be live in the idea that it is constantly changing with advice columns and blogs and such.”