A Web site designed by students at the Owen School hopes to help students plan spring break and other road trips. My College Road Trip offers a unique perspective because college students write the material with other college students in mind.
“The best thing is that it narrows down the massive amount of information about cities or things to do in a particular destination to the things that college students care the most about,” says Virginia Francis, Owen student and Vice President of Brand Management at MCRT.
Owen student Andrew Bouldin, Founder and CEO of MCRT, says he came up with the idea of the Web site while he was driving home from a weekend road trip.
“I realized that there was no way to find out the coolest things for college students to do around my college on any given weekend,” Bouldin explains. Once he got home, he said he began to search the Internet for quality travel information aimed at college students and could find nothing. All information on potential vacation destinations was written by parents and executives, he says. Bouldin found a group of fellow students who shared his irritation, and MCRT was born.
Many Vanderbilt students contribute to the running of the online business. They include the Owen graduate students who launched the Web site, as well as undergraduate students in Associate Professor of Managerial Studies Cherrie Clark’s Advanced Marketing class.
“They are implementing a viral marketing project to promote the site,” Francis says. “Online tools like Facebook and blogs are being used to reach college students around the country.”
The students are currently seeking investors to help them promote MCRT. Their goal is to raise enough angel funding to expand marketing to 12 college campuses by the fall of 2009. If you are interested in becoming an investor, please visit www.mycollegeroadtrip.com for more details.
This article is an edited version of the one written by Ruth Kinsey for the February 9, 2009, edition of The Vanderbilt Hustler.