How I started a startup project as a Sophomore

Hello everyone I am Minghang Chamling and I study Computer Science. I am the founder and creator of UchatDorm this is my story of how I built UchatDorm.

When I first came to China to study as a international student, I was really excited as most of us would be and at the same time kinda nervous too. Like meeting new people, having new roommate, and living in the dorm etc. Like many students I didn't really have a time to ask around about the dorms or search around person to live with and I arrived late which made the things worse because that means I have to live in whatever dorm was left and a random roommate.

At first, I thought it would be fine. After all, how bad could it be? But soon, reality hit. My roommate and I had different lifestyles, different habits, and different expectations. We often had small arguments about things like smoking, noise, cleanliness of bathroom and personal space. It was huge mess and things fell apart.

That experience made me realize like how important it is to think about who you move in with and finding good roommate and dorm shouldn't be left up to chance. So I thought about it and was like "What if there was a platform where student can look for roommate before moving in? A place where you could chat, get to know each other and see if you actually vibe with each other before being actual roommate. '' .

That's where the idea of UchatDorm started.

It was my sophomore year and I was in my Summer holiday and I started by coding small features and things started to pick up the speed. The programming language of my choice was Python because I was familiar with it and if you want to know what web framework I used then it's Django which itself is written in Python, so it was really smooth to work for me . I first finished on roommate finding feature where the student could see others looking for roommate or put themselves up for others to see. And I thought it would be really good idea to make features not just for roommates, but also for dorms themselves. After all, wouldn’t it be amazing if you could check honest ratings & reviews from students or seniors who had already lived in a dorm before deciding where to stay?

I stayed late at night coding, sketching out features, debating myself if the UI(User Interface) I made was good or not. It wasn’t easy, but I kept reminding myself why I started: i.e to solve the exact problems I faced as a student. And after month of working on it, I deployed it on the internet and I posted it all over the groups in my Wechat and other social media. I did manage to get quite a significant amount of users like that. And some of the feedback that I got was really nice and it felt good to hear those words after a month of coding.

UchatDorm Right Now

UchatDorm as of writing this blog right now it has grown so much and significant amount of features and improvements has been brought. Like now the users can find scholarship and internships that we have on our database which can provide some students with opportunity to shape their future or help them in their academic journey, that is why that feature is named UchatDorm Opportunity. And one of the most significant feature has to be UchatDorm AI which is our own custom built AI fined tuned with data that matters to the student, and it helps students by guiding them pick up the best dorms, summarizing the ratings and reviews of the dorms, giving suggestions on scholarships and internships and telling how to prepare etc. It's here to transform you experience of using the UchatDorm and being a help companion. And lastly one of the features that was just added is UchatDorm Blog, this same place where you are reading this story right now. It is a place for students to share their stories, ideas, and experiences about dorm life, university, and beyond. It’s where your voice can inspire, connect, and guide others in the student community.

Looking Ahead

UchatDorm started as a idea of mine to solve the problems that I was facing and which is the same problems many students worldwide are facing and my vision for UchatDorm is to make it a go-to platform for students worldwide not just for dorms and roommates, but for building real connections and making university life less stressful and more meaningful.

This is just the beginning. If you happen to read through all of this thank you very much and Welcome to UchatDorm.