A new tool created by students aimed to help students pick general education (GE) courses has come to the San José State campus.

Graduation Scope is a free tool that helps students find easy GE classes and allows users to sort courses by category to see which ones fulfill their remaining requirements, according to its webpage.

In addition to helping students find easier classes, Graduation Scope also lets users choose class times that fit their schedules. Students can filter by morning or evening classes and even hide days they prefer not to take classes.

Elijah Keys, an SJSU second-year business student, created the website and published the first version of the site in June.

“I was picking classes for this upcoming semester and I was like, wow, this took a lot of time. I had to search for a few hours, something can be improved here,” Keys said. “Initially, the idea was to redo the student portal and make it more user-friendly, but I ended up switching to a website because I feel like it would be faster in helping students. Now I’m able to get users, get numbers (and) get feedback in real time.”

Students at SJSU must complete 15 sections of GE classes to fulfill their requirements. They can also use the website to track their progress and see how many GE classes they still need to take.

However,SJSU, which now has nearly 40,000 students, an 8% increase in enrollment since last year, according to an Aug. 25 article from NBC Bay Area.

Thomas Walls, a first-year justice studies student and the social engagement director for Graduation Scope, said courses fill up quickly, so students need to act fast when they see  available classes.

“Graduation Scope only has a certain window when it’s visible for use, like registering for classes. So on October 20, be sure to use Graduation Scope to register for classes,” Walls said.

Graduation Scope’s website also lets you click on a professor’s name, which takes you to their Rate My Professors page, a site where students can check out a teacher’s style before registering.

Higher ratings often attract more students to those classes, making Graduation Scope more competitive as registration time approaches.

“We have a lot of different features that are unique to us, but the main issue, I think, is getting those outs so that people can see the website and instantly know what to click,” Keys said.“That’s definitely the hardest part because this is my first time building something like this, so it’s a lot of trial and error, a lot of good stuff to learn.”

Keys receives a lot of feedback through his Instagram page, @graduation_scope, where he posts weekly interviews with students and clubs promoting why they use Graduation Scope.

However, despite all the feedback Keys and his team have received, there are still areas he wants to improve.

Pranavi Myana, a first-year aviation student, is one of three Graduation Scope interns and first learned about the website through social media.

“I first heard about Graduation Scope through Instagram and TikTok because I just kept getting videos about them,” Myana said. “After I saw (Keys) in person, I was like, ‘Oh, this is real,’ because I thought it was one of those accounts where they just make one for people. Honestly, I didn’t really dig deep into it at first.”

Graduation Scope has been posting information often to help students stay on top of their GE class options.

“I made an account, put in my classes and everything popped up there. It’s just really motivating how he’s reaching out to different people on campus, because not a lot of people know about it,” she said.

Keys also expanded Graduation Scope to three other universities: California State University, Chico, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz.

“I picked those because my friends go there, one of my best friends goes to Chico State, I know a few people at Berkeley, a few people at Santa Cruz and the people at Santa Cruz reached out like, ‘You want to add this for UC Santa Cruz?’ ” Keys said.

As of now, upper-division GE classes, including UD 2 or 5, UD 3 and UD 4 courses, are not visible on Graduation Scope.

Keys said he’s working on expanding the website to include these classes and to focus on popular majors, so students can still get recommendations and find the easiest options.

“I would say that another thing I’m trying to focus on right now is picking popular majors that I know, especially ones like business, computer science and engineering, different majors that are really popular,” Keys said. “I’m going to try to add upper-division classes when we can, so we can still give you class recommendations and show you the easiest classes for those.”

At SJSU, 26% of students are business majors, while 13% are engineering majors, according to U.S. News.

Ryan Coleman, a first-year psychology student, is also an intern at Graduation Scope. 

“It’s like I’m redshirting, watching everything being done,” Coleman said. “I’m seeing the process of what it’s like to run a website, the hours spent editing videos and everything behind the scenes. I’m just observing.”

Coleman started as a Graduation Scope user but eventually became an intern through his relationship with Keys.

“I think it’s best to just keep expanding on the success we’ve had in San Jose,” Keys said.