How many times have you sat through a lecture and nothing the professor said made sense? Looking around the classroom there is always at least guy person bent over their desk diligently writing notes who seems like they actually get what is happening. You want that guy’s notes. And by the end of the day you can have them for free at Nerdy-Notes.com.
Launched in January by Stony Brook students Trevor Pernice, Abhishek “Abhi” Parejh, Chris Joseph and Yuri Steinberg, Nerdy Notes is the answer to all of your DEC prayers. It’s the equivalent of SparkNotes for any and all lecture classes exclusively at Stony Brook University.
Pernice, the CEO of Nerdy Notes says the idea came to him while sitting in a DEC lecture. The professor’s English wasn’t great and Pernice had no idea what was happening in class.
“So I was wondering, there’s gotta be somebody here who’s getting this stuff better than I am,” says Pernice. “And it would be great if I can somehow get that person’s notes.”
Thus the idea for Nerdy Notes was born.
The site gives you a list of all of the classes that have notes. There are different packages of notes: weekly, exam, final exam and semester package. A weekly will give you one week of notes, an exam or final exam will include any notes that have to do with the exam as well as anything the note-taker has highlighted as important, the semester package has almost everything you need to guide you through the class.
“We want students to come to our website, upload their notes and share them with other students,” says Steinberg. “The idea of Nerdy Notes is to have a tool for students to if they go to class and they don’t understand they can go back, read the notes and catch up.”
Also, for now it’s free. Free information, free notes, what’s not to love?
Nerdy Notes is not intended to be a replacement for going to class. You still have to make the effort, show up to class and take your exams. Instead of struggling, you just have a little help from your good friends at Nerdy Notes.
Nerdy Notes was not an overnight creation. Originally, the boys met through the Entrepreneurs Club founded by Steinberg in Fall 2012. Prenice, Joseph and Parejh joined Steinberg’s club in Fall 2013 as freshman. Encouraged by Dr. AnnMaire Scheidt, a business professor, they took the early ideas of Nerdy Notes and entered it in the SBU Entrepreneurs Challenge, a competition held by the University to encourage entrepreneurship from students. This summer the boys gathered and made their dream into reality and launched in January 2014.
According to the boys, notes can come from just about anyone. “Usually current students or past T.A.’s,” says Joseph. It’s easy to tell if notes are good or not, but nonetheless it is a judgment call.
“We have a comments section and a rating system,” explains Steinberg. “If students don’t feel that it’s correct or useful they’ll say something.”
Nerdy Notes gets nearly 300 hits a day. “We know a lot of people who would benefit from it,” says Steinberg. Business is good.
Author
Lauren Klein
