As a college student, it’s hard enough to live on a budget without the added financial burden of expensive textbooks and other study materials. We also face the stress of high competition and high pressure to do well in school. However, not all of us have the same benefits when it comes to getting the resources we need to succeed in school.

Enter Studymode, a company founded in 1999 by Blaine Vess and Chris Nelson, who experienced the same challenges of today’s students. Studymode’s mission is to help students get better grades by providing free access to study materials from students all around the world.

I absolutely love what Studymode stands for as a company as it provides equal opportunities for students to succeed academically. Studymode’s newest feature is Studymode Drive, a resource that was launched just a few months ago in October 2015 and that gives students free access to lecture notes, past exams and other documents based on their university.

I was given the opportunity to have an interview with Studymode’s President, Thomas Swalla, who will tell us more about this exciting new feature and his long-term visions for Studymode Drive.

Q: I understand Studymode Drive just launched a few months ago. Could you tell us a little about what it is for those who don't know about it yet?

TS: StudyMode Drive is the first 100% crowd-sourced content sharing community specifically designed for college students.

We are trying to make it easy to connect students with high quality, free resources that will help them study smarter and save money. Our vision is to be community-driven. We believe that the best student in the class will share her study guides to help out others, and in exchange she will be able to get help in another class. The reality is that sometimes you need to miss class, whether for work or because you have another class on the other side of the campus, so being able to find notes for what you missed is incredibly helpful.

Q: That’s a very worthy cause! What inspired you to start Studymode Drive and where did this idea come from?

TS: The idea for StudyMode Drive came from one of our customers. A student from the University of California Irvine asked how she could find all the lecture notes for her school for free. When we asked her why she wanted the lecture notes she told us that she has a part-time job and can’t always make class, and it takes time to make friends with people in the class to share notes. So we thought about how we could create a community around that need.

Q: Can you tell me a little about the special features of Studymode Drive?

TS: The best feature is simplicity. We designed the product to be extremely easy, free, and fair. If you give at least 1 piece of original content, you instantly gain access to everything contributed by all other students at the school. The site is also 100% based on the honor system--we don’t review the content or approve/deny student’s access. Students can contribute whatever they think is helpful to other students whether that’s lecture notes, problem sets, coding assignments, tests, quizzes, or syllabi.

Q: What kind of feedback have you gotten from professors?

TS : A lot of passionate responses. For example, some professors ask that students never share old tests from previous classes (usually because they don’t want to create a new test). Other professors post every single test/quiz/midterm they have ever assigned because that’s how they expect students to learn the material and prepare for finals. In fact, at UCLA there is a university-sponsored Test Bank where students can line up to get a paper copy of old tests. We think that’s a great service, but that service is even better when it’s 100% digital and student-run.

Q:Studymode Drive is still relatively new. Are there any new upcoming features you're working on? Will there be any new developments we should be keeping our eyes out for?

TS: We just launched at 50 colleges in October 2015, and the feedback has been amazing. One school already has 3,000 students and 3,500 documents. So right now we are just focused on learning what students like and what new features they want to see because feedback is the best way to learn. The early adopters have requested things like a mobile application and collaboration features such as chat.

Q: What do you hope Studymode Drive will achieve? What are your long-term goals for Studymode Drive?

TS : We want to create the world’s largest campus-based content community. In the long-term we believe that Drive will be the portal where students can collaborate, exchange ideas, form virtual study groups, and work together to earn better grades. We also want to keep Drive free because charging for access excludes too many students. They already have to pay too much for textbooks and tuition and housing and food.

So, for those of you who have not checked out Studymode Drive, do so now! Studymode Drive revolves around the idea of students helping out one another and its success will depend on students’ collaboration in sharing their notes and past exams to create a digital community within universities. So, let us all contribute and gain from this groundbreaking resource. Go ahead and click this link: http://drive.studymode.com/ Don’t be shy, it’s completely free!