When freshman Deborah Bamel wakes up every morning, the first thing she does is log on to TuftsLife.com.
"I check the weather and I use it to check my e-mail," she said. "One day, my computer turned off somehow during the night, and it was horrible. In the morning it was torture to wait for it to turn on and start up because I needed to get on to TuftsLife.com so badly."
Four weeks into their Tufts careers, Bamel and other freshmen are already addicted to the Web site that has been an on-campus institution since 2000.
The Web site has replaced freshman Marianna Bender's planner. "I usually just go back to the Web site instead of writing things down," she said. TuftsLife.com is her computer homepage, and Bender uses the site for links to student resources pages Blackboard and Student Information System (SIS).
"Oh, and of course for the food!" she said.
The site is entirely student-run. Its goal, according to the "About" section of the site is "to provide a rich information experience, packed with Tufts-specific content as well as links to the world beyond campus."
TuftsLife.com is now available for handheld PDAs and cell phones, so students can be plugged into the campus every hour of every day.
TuftsLife.com is the brainchild of two recent Tufts graduates, Mike Masterman (E '03) and Eric Satler (E '03). Masterman and Satler left the task of maintaining the Web site to a small staff. Ten students now help with coding and look through submissions to the site. Three site executive officers are in charge of the site's main content.
Each executive officer spends an hour on the site every day, Chief Relations Officer senior Rajit Kapur said. The officers "all work very hard in the hopes that it benefits the Tufts community," he said.
Many community members are appreciative of their efforts. "The reason I use TuftsLife.com, I think, is the same reason everyone uses it: it simplifies and combines all the resources a Tufts student needs into an easy-to-use format," freshman Matt Skibinski said. "I use it for everything from looking up campus events to checking the score of the Yankees game."
How then, does the Tufts Public Relations office - which is responsible for the school's official Web site, Tufts.edu - feel about TuftsLife.com? "The two sites serve different roles within the community, and I think they coexist well," said Pete Sanborn, Director of Web Communications for Tufts Public Relations.
Tufts' official Web site is a valuable resource for students and, unlike TuftsLife.com, also serves as a resource for the world outside, Sanborn said.
"The University's main upper-level pages are the online front door to Tufts for a wide range of audiences," Sanborn said. "We work to balance the needs of students, faculty and staff on all three campuses with those of alumni, parents, prospective students, neighbors, media, donors, friends of the University and members of the general public."
The main Tufts.edu page features spotlights on certain students, campus projects, faculty members and alumni.
"We're part of a vibrant and exciting university, and it's a lot of fun to use our Web sites to showcase many of the people who help make the Tufts community such a rich place to live, learn and work," Sanborn said.
The InsideTufts section of Tufts.edu is geared specifically toward current students. In this section undergraduate and graduate students can access a schedule of events on all of Tufts' campuses. InsideTufts also provides visitors with links to Tufts-related news stories.
The services provided by Tufts.edu, despite attempts to appeal to current students, may be less practical for undergraduates than those offered by TuftsLife.com.
"The last time I was on Tufts.edu was the day I sent in my application," Skibinski said.
