A Des Moines native is getting some attention for a website she’s created that helps college students keep track of what’s going on around campus. Brittany Brody founded the site “Fampus” after leaving Iowa to attend the University of Wisconsin.
Brody says she was excited to go to college, but also frustrated and confused in trying find out what was going on at the school and decided to develop the website. She got help from her dad to get things started and says it evolved over three years and has become a great tool for students.
Brody says they have a “human touch” on events and says they can guarantee if you see that there’s a concert that costs $10, you know you can go with a 10-dollar bill and get in. She says the website is searchable, so you can for instance look for a comedy show and find those in your community. It’s common to see paper flyers stuck to light poles around campus to advertise upcoming events.
Brody says she’s sat in a coffee house and watched one person put up a flyer and a few minutes later someone else put another over the top of it. She found out first hand that it’s an unreliable way to get out information.
Brody says she had just finished reading a book and saw a flyer that said the author was coming to campus, but when she checked the date, she found out it was the day before. She says she heard the same complaint from other people on campus and from friends at schools back in Iowa.
Brody got Fampus started at Grand View University in Des Moines and then expanded it to Drake University, Simpson College, Iowa State University, the University of Iowa, the University of Nebraska and University of Wisconsin. The success of the site has prompted interest from the media.
She says the student response has been “overwhelmingly positive” and they have gotten requests from all over the U.S. and the world that says “Bring Fampus to my campus.” Brody says ads on the site help pay for it and she says she found students don’t mind looking at the ads if they are products that they are interested in. She hopes to expand the site to 300 colleges.
You can find out more at: www.fampus.com.