Founder Profile: HelloUniversity

Website: HelloUniversity

If we were going to start off with every accolade resting on the shoulders of these founders, we would have no time to detail our interview. But whether it was on stage at Michigan’s TEDx conference last year or behind the scenes of Student of Umich you have probably heard the name Somya Bhagwagar. And if one Michigan all-star wasn’t enough, Co-founders Steve, Justin and Noah are all certified change-makers here at the University of Michigan as well.

This week, the V1 team had the great pleasure of catching up with the whole HelloU founding team to ask a few questions regarding exactly what it is they have been working on since back in 2019. We are extremely excited to have HelloUniversity in our upcoming V1 @ Michigan Newsletter, but even more excited for you all to check out what they had to say!

What inspired you all to build HelloUniversity?

We are an eclectic group of four founders looking to make a difference in the lives of students. Steve is an international student from China. He came to the US with little understanding of how the university-system worked. He not only had knowledge barriers about concepts like majors/minors, but also communication barriers. When you’re an international student, nobody prepares you for US culture. What’s Black History Month? What is Pride? What can you say? What shouldn’t you say? Other students don’t have the same background in US history and politics to understand nuances. Justin came from a home-schooled background where he also faced a difficult adjustment period in learning how to balance all aspects of college. It’s not just about the academics, but the balancing of health, school, and socialization. Somya comes from an area where the inner-city lacked resources. Not many people had role models to look up to or saw people that looked like them in positions of success. College doesn’t seem like an option for many people because they don’t even know where to start. Noah struggled with the application process of applying to universities. He didn’t know where he belonged and what he wanted to be doing. The process of applying to places can be isolating sometimes since nobody is on the same journey with you. We hope to provide a resource that allows for a bit more accessibility in the realm of education; and to facilitate a smoother college transition for ALL students with ranging backgrounds (private school, international school, public school, and homeschool) as well as ranging experiences (from those who may not have considered higher education before, to students who’ve had it written in their life plan).

Can you give us the HelloUniversity elevator?

HelloUniversity is an online mentorship platform where students can talk to mentors from top 30 universities to learn about different majors, career paths, and universities. Our mentors range in backgrounds from studying fashion design to computational neuroscience to architecture to chemical engineering.

Typically, in high school, we have our 7 core courses: math, science, history, etc. Then when you come to college, there’s 1000 of majors to choose from. What’s the difference between majoring in neuroscience vs psychology vs biopsychology vs computational neuroscience? Or maybe you didn’t realize that architecture actually requires both high-level math skills and design skills? Or that you need to think in an extremely creative way to code? There are so many different avenues to career paths that so many of us don’t get the opportunity to explore!

At HelloUniversity, you can talk to mentors from their ranging backgrounds to understand the nuances of different majors, at different universities, that can lead to very different outcomes. You can prepare for college, and for your future.

Tell us a bit about the HelloUniversity team!

Steve is lead operations. He is a current senior studying Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science. He was the founder of a very popular fitness student organization on campus called “Michigan Muscle Club”. The organization helped hundreds of students get in the habit of working out, improving both their mental health and physical health. The success of this club made him realize the power of community and mentorship, the positive influence they can make. In the future, he hopes to build HelloUniversity into a similar community, a platform to guide international students like himself navigate and make the most out of their college experience.

Justin is the lead backend developer at HelloU. He is a junior studying industrial operations engineering with minors in computer science and entrepreneurship. In addition to HelloU, he balances development work on a campus engagement startup called Uniflow, which partnered with Michigan’s Ross School of Business to host their club recruiting cycle. He is passionate about cyber security and improving education quality for students worldwide.

Noah is the lead front end developer at HelloU. He writes the code for what gets displayed on our mobile app and website. He’s a current student at the University of Michigan, graduating in 2021. He majors in computer science and minors in mathematics. He is interested in the intersection of machine learning and financial technology. He has interned as a software engineer at Enova, a fintech company in Chicago. Outside of school and programming, he loves to golf, play basketball, and run.

Somya is the lead marketing and UX designer for HelloU. She is a current master’s student studying Information Science with a focus on social media analysis and UX analysis. While working on her master’s, she is also working full-time at CME Group as a Digital Marketing Analyst. Her research focuses on algorithmic impact on pre-existing interlocking structures of marginalization in the physical realm, and how the information we see changes the way that we think. She is passionate about the intersection of storytelling and privacy; and founded @Studentsofumich 5 years ago. Last year, she gave a Tedx talk about this project and how it fits into the technopolitical realm. Outside of school and work, she likes calisthenics, longboarding, and photography.

What are some recent milestones?

· April 2019- became an official LLC

· 2019 Summer- product testing in different markets

· 2019-March 2019-website development

· March 2019- present mentor recruitment

· March-September 2020- wireframed, user tested, and launched the mobile apps

· October 2020- starting to market the product

What’s on the roadmap for the year ahead?

This year we hope to do marketing in China and the US to bring more users on board. We need to update our website, create a desktop application, and continue to build our business model as it develops through constant iterations.

What’s the vision for HelloUniversity?

HelloUniversity is about helping students become the best versions of themselves. But self-improvement is not only an internal and isolated process — it can benefit greatly from the right outside influence. There are very few influences more positive and powerful than a good mentor and role model. We believe that by communicating with the right mentors, students can open their minds, better understand themselves, see further, and achieve greatness.

Central to our conception is the idea of Ikigai — a Japanese proverb meaning “a reason for being,” or simply put: what motivates you to get up in the morning? The concept is an intersection of three things: our values, the things we like to do, and the things we are good at.

Our vision is to help students find their personal intersection of Ikigai in college. We want to help our students become the best versions of themselves by exploring new opportunities and career paths, learning how to study, finding their passions, and setting goals for success at a university level.

How are you looking to grow your team?

• Graphic Design/Content Creation
• Graphic Design experience
• Previous experience with writing: feature stories, social media posts, etc
• Strong written and verbal skills
• Excellent time management skills
• Up to date with content and social media trends
• Personal interest in our project
• Front End Developer
• React.js OR React Native experience required
• Git experience required
• Knowledge of CSS Flexbox preferred
• REST API experience preferred
• Marketing and Advertising
• Strong written and verbal skills
• Networking skills
• Creative problem solving skills
• Personal interest in our project

That’s the comprehensive list of skills and qualities we are looking for in new team members.

Anything else you’d like to add?

If you’d like to apply for these positions, please make sure that you bring some interview questions for us as well. This isn’t just about if you’re a good match for us, but also if we are a good match for you. We want you to genuinely be apart of this team and bring your authentic self to the task every day with passion.

Thanks for for reading! If you are a designer or engineer at the University of Michigan interested in working with the HelloU team, be sure to visit our website and sign up for our monthly newsletter today. Additionally, stay tuned for more Founder Profile’s to come!