Picture this: Mid-semester break is a few days away, and you are desperate to go home. You don’t have a vehicle, nor do your friends, and it’s too late or too costly to book a flight. So, what do you do? You turn to YikYak. Students have been using YikYak for transportation for as long as I have attended SLU. Requests for rides increase in the days leading up to break, but they are present yearround. Not only do students need to travel home, but they also need to travel to places like the Walmart in Potsdam or Dick’s Sporting Goods in Watertown. We need a way to ensure that all students can travel where they need to and when they need to in a safe manner, and Thelmo might have a solution.
The obvious danger of using YikYak for transportation is its anonymity. Even though you can join the St. Lawrence page on YikYak, there is no process to verify that those using it are actual St. Lawrence students. The last thing we want is for students to find themselves in the dangerous situation of meeting up with a stranger to get a ride. I was not aware of the true extent of this issue until I began my term at the Thelomathesian Society’s Student Delegate to the Board of Trustees. In a meeting with Senior Staff early last fall, I was informed that there are currently no transportation services offered for mid-semester breaks.
Furthermore, there are limited transportation services offered to Canada. I was shocked, to say the least; as someone who is fortunate enough to have a vehicle on campus, I have never had to worry about getting home for breaks (minus the occasional blizzard, of course). Thus, I joined forces with the Thelomathesian Society’s Vice President for University Relations, Inci Ucar, to pursue a rideshare initiative that is for SLU students, by SLU students.
Inci and I have been hard at work meeting with faculty and staff members, as well as students, to brainstorm what this rideshare platform would look like. A Facebook group? No, students have told us that they are “ineffective and underutilized.” A physical bulletin board? No, this is 2024. A mobile platform? Bingo. Our idea is to have a mobile platform where student “drivers” can offer transportation to student “riders.” Both drivers and riders would undergo a verification process to ensure that they are students before using the platform. That way, the “stranger danger” issue is eliminated, and students can feel rewarded knowing that they helped a fellow Saint. This rideshare initiative is in its initial stages; thus, if anyone out there has ideas as to how we can solve this issue or improve our proposed solution, reach out to us! Gone are the days of riding with YikYak, and in are the days of riding with Saints.