With Commencement around the corner, many seniors will soon break out of the Brown bubble - but a new Web site, going live Monday, hopes to ease the transition.
Matt Demmer, co-founder of the Web site and a recent Georgetown University graduate, said Gradspot would serve as an "information and tool resource for recent graduates from college."
Demmer founded the company with two friends - , a graduate of Oxford and Harvard universities, and Stuart Schultz, an Emory University grad. Demmer said the three founders designed the site based on the resources they would have found useful as they moved on from college life and adjusted to the "real world."
The Web site has five components: apartment, money, career, health and play. Articles cover topics from fix-it tips, renters' insurance and tipping the doorman to 401(k)s, office politics and choosing a health care provider.
The site will feature a forum where grads can share tips and experiences, a forum for locating potential roommates, and a job posting board where companies can advertise positions aimed at recent grads, he said.
The job board allowing companies to post positions aimed at recent grads will prevent people from having to wade through listings on other sites for jobs for which they don't have enough experience, and the roommate board may provide some reassurance to recent grads wary of Craigslist.
"When someone advertises for a roommate, at least you'll know it's someone who went to college, and you'll know which college, which is comforting," Demmer said.
All three founders were living in New York when , whom Demmer met when studying abroad in London, approached Demmer with the idea. and Schultz had been working together at an investment bank, but both realized the banking world did not interest them. From there, the Gradspot project emerged.
They began a rigorous search for contributors. "It was insanely important to get people who share our vision. If the research wasn't perfect, the articles wouldn't be helpful. And they needed to be funny, to be able to mix in jokes and pop culture references, or the tone wouldn't be right," said Demmer, who had been writing creatively since graduating from college. They ultimately chose 15 writers from a pool of around 1,000 applicants.
In creating the site, the founders attempted to present information in a useful and fun format. They wanted to share "the ridiculous experiences of those who had already been through all of this and failed miserably," Demmer said.
"There were so many things about the transition we were so oblivious about," Demer said. "It seemed ridiculous that everybody had to learn this stuff by experience, when it would be easy to put all that information into one source," Demmer said. "It seemed amazing that there wasn't already a resource like this."
"The transition from college is exciting but also daunting," Demmer said. "You're totally separated from your parents for the first time. Almost everyone has had a parental safety net in college to some extent ... when you graduate and start working, all that dissipates so quickly."
Although Gradspot is currently based in New York, Demmer said the founders think the site will be useful nationally.
"Most of the information is not city-specific, but the same for no matter where you're living," Demmer said. "Finding an apartment is difficult no matter where you are. Healthcare providers are the same across the nation."
The initial site will be open to graduates everywhere, without any biases regarding location. But Demmer hopes to expand Gradspot eventually into multiple city-specific sites, such as Gradspot-L.A. and Gradspot-New York to provide more locally relevant information.
Demmer and the others are now in the process of spreading the word about their project. "If we do a good job, I think the sky will be the limit," he said. "People could be using it from their junior year in college to their mid-20s - that's lot of people."
"We're only three guys - we're obviously not going to be thinking about everything people have to deal with," Demmer said. "We said, 'Let's get people talking about things.' "
Seniors interviewed by The Herald expressed interest in using a resource like Gradspot. Laura Snizek '07 said she agreed with Demmer that the transition from college is daunting and said she would "definitely" be interested in the information Gradspot could provide.
"I probably would use it," said Michelle Oing '07, who said she wasn't quite sure of her post-graduation plans. She said she might move to New York and live with friends who are also graduating.
"My dad keeps telling me that I have to figure out finances," Oing said. "There are so many things I don't know, and I don't even know that I don't know them."
