Smartphone app aims to help college students get organized

Madelyn Grant
Tue, 10 Sep 2013 03:01:14 +0000
Campus, apps, asana, ohio state, osu, smartphone

A screenshot of Asana, a free app, which allows users to create, rank and assign tasks, and collaborate with up to 15 people for free. Credit: Courtesy of Asana

A smartphone application created by two former Facebook employees may provide Ohio State students juggling classes and clubs with a little bit of help.

Asana, a free app, allows users to create, rank and assign tasks, provides an inbox and push notifications and features the ability to collaborate with up to 15 people for free by creating teams that share projects.

Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook cofounder, and Justin Rosenstein, a former product manager at Facebook and Google, founded Asana in 2009 as a way to manage getting their work done via email and meetings while they were at Facebook. Moskovitz and Rosenstein left Facebook that same year to focus solely on Asana.

Moskovitz and Rosenstein wanted students to be able to manage their work more efficiently so they could have more free time, said Emily Kramer, who is in charge of marketing at Asana.

“We are seeing Asana change the way students manage their school lives on thousands of campuses across the country,” Kramer said.

Kramer said when students can get organized easily and quickly, it allows them more time to focus on the things they want to do.

“From tracking class assignments and exams, to collaborating with student groups and planning for their careers, Asana is the place where students can keep track of it all. Ultimately, we are trying to give students more time to experience everything college has to offer,” Kramer said.

Marie Blasi, a first-year in health sciences, said Asana could help with her adjustment to college life.

“(It would help me) to stay on top of things and stay organized on what I have to do,” Blasi said.

Asana also has the capability to work hand-in-hand with other programs students may be using for group projects or class assignments, such as Google Docs and Dropbox.

However, some students at OSU said Asana might overlap in its capabilities and benefits with those of Carmen.

“It sounds kind of similar to Carmen because you have all your assignments in one place, but with this you can work together with other people on it which sounds like a good thing,” said Natalie McCormick, a first-year in early childhood education.

Other OSU students also said they’d consider using the collaboration feature.

“It would bring students closer together because I notice in most of my classes I meet one person and that’s about it,” said Cole Boeckman, a third-year in biology.