Course Hero is an online space for students to share and download free notes and study guides to create a new studying experience.

“It provides an awesome studying platform for any type of user,” said Stephanie Parks, director of campus operations at Course Hero Inc.

To join, a student can either choose from three different monthly pay packages to gain instant access, or they can pay their way by uploading documents to share with others. More documents means more months of free access, and viewing and downloading documents to use is free.

A California-based company created in 2008 by CEO Andrew Grauer, Course Hero services 4,300 schools internationally. Course Hero provides other study aids such as 24/7 tutoring, flashcards and online lectures.

“We have tutors at your fingertips as well as fun, informational lectures that can even give you the basics from an entrepreneurship lecture to a lecture on HTML,” Parks said.

Once signed up for this service, students have access to numerous study aids for their classes at Kent State. All classes are not available yet, but students have the option to create a course by adding their notes to the website to allow other students to participate.

Course Hero also partnered with Books for Africa in 2010 to create the Knowledge Drive.

“Our mantra is knowledge should be accessible for all,” Parks said, which is why Course Hero offers the chance for students to donate one book to children in Gambia for every ten documents they upload. Close to 50,000 books already have been donated to three different schools in Gambia.

Students also may intern for Course Hero at 100 schools, including Kent State, to ensure all classes have accessible notes for students to use. Interns will work to spread the word about Course Hero and encourage students to sign up to “complete” (add documents to) each course at Kent.

If students are interested, the posting for the internship can be found on the Kent State Career Services website under Ohio Internships.

“Everyone is so friendly and really passionate about what they do here,” Parks said. “I interviewed for several start-ups here at Silicon Valley, and Course Hero had the best atmosphere. It really makes coming into work fun.”

The future of Course Hero is centered around improvement.

“Most importantly, we are focusing on making all of our products better, currently the tutoring and flashcard products,” Parks said. “In the future, we see Course Hero as a place where people of any level of expertise can go to learn something from A to Z.”

Some students, however, said they are unsure if they would use such a service.

“I think different people take different kinds of notes, so it might not be helpful in that way,” said senior nutrition major Sarah Sedely.

Sophomore news major Yusef Bridges said he felt undecided on the matter as well.

“I could only see myself briefly using it for a last-minute kind of thing,” Bridges said. “Personally, I don’t use a lot of school programs, but I think it would definitely be helpful, and I think it would be something I would mention to people.”

is a news correspondent for the Daily Kent Stater.

Contact Christina Bucciere at [email protected].