Bridging Dreams Beyond Distance
Have you ever wondered or asked yourself how hard it is to be far away from your family for the first time? That you're the only one responsible for everything you do and will do in the future? Because if so, is it difficult? Is it hard? Are you still coping with the changes?
Ever since I started my freshman year, I have found it difficult to live far away from my family, especially since I will be responsible for everything that I do. But considering other students like me, I still consider myself lucky, for I can go home whenever I want since the distance of the campus from home is only 1 hour away. There was one time when we questioned ourselves, how did the students outside Bukidnon find a place to live considering that they would travel 6–8 hours in order to reach the campus from their homes?
To answer our curiosity, me and my groupmates stroll around and interviewed some students around Central Mindanao University Campus, and a lot of them faced different problems. But to our concern, there are a lot of difficulties that the students encountered when they were looking for a house to live temporarily while studying here at CMU. So here are some of the problems that the students from outside Bukidnon encountered when they were looking for a house to live with.
Problems Encountered by Students
1. Distance
Students that live outside Bukidnon are struggling, especially since they don’t have any relatives or contacts here in Bukidnon. According to some, it is very exhausting to look for a house, especially since they need to travel for about 6–8 hours.
2. Time consuming
Visiting from one house to another is very time-consuming. According to them, they visit 3–6 houses just to find houses that are very comfortable to live in. also because they need to check every house and room to see if it is small or big and if it is comfortable or not.
3. Not budget-friendly
Some students can afford expensive houses, but some cannot. Houses that have a great and peaceful environment, along with nice rooms and utilities, are very expensive and are not budget-friendly for some students since they have to fit their allowance for their next need.
4. Lack of details
Since social media is popular nowadays, landowners will post their houses and look for tenants. They will include inclusions, prices, and many more. but the only thing they lack are pictures of every room and how many people can live in one room. According to a student, he found a post where he traveled and visited the house, only to find out that the room is for 4-6 people, is very small, and is not comfortable to live in.
5. Availability
There are a lot of houses that can be seen both outside and inside the campus. That's why it is very hard to differentiate and distinguish if that house is a boarding house or not. A student answered that she and her parents visited and asked a lot of houses inside the campus if they were available or not. And it took them half a day to find a comfortable, have a peaceful environment, and was near her college.
After hearing the problems of the students in Central Mindanao University that lives outside Bukidnon, we come up a solution that will cater and solve all their problems in finding a house.
We will create an application where all the available houses near the campus can be seen. This includes:
Rent - to know if it is budget-friendly or not
Pictures - to know what the house looks like. this includes pictures both inside and outside the house (backyard, rooms, utilities, kitchen, etc.)
Measurements - to know if the house is big or not
Prices - to know if there are additional fees for appliances
Directions - to know the location of the house, and to know if it is near their college
Inclusions - to know the things that are included along with the payment (electricity, appliances, water, Wi-Fi, etc.)
Ratings - to know if the house is good or not
Payable features - to track the fees
Last Tuesday, we proposed our proposal to Mr. Menguito, our entrepreneurial mind instructor, and he commented that our idea on how to solve this problem is good but not unique. It lacks what he calls a "wow factor." It means that we still need to think about how to improve our ideas to turn them into a unique ones. In order to do so, we will again interview students and will ask them on any suggestion about our proposal on how we can improve it. And after that, we will do research, and then compile our ideas together to come up a better and unique idea.
-- Angela Fabre; BSCE1A
