End of School Year Deals on DukeList Classifieds
If you're a Duke student or employee in the market for a used car, sofa or mattress, or want to sublease an apartment, there's no better place to look right now than DukeList, the free online classifieds for the Duke community.
"Hundreds of people in the past six weeks have posted items for sale or places to rent," said Susan Kauffman, communications director for the Office of Undergraduate Education and the site administrator. "Students are leaving town and they need to unload things quickly. There are some really good prices out there."
DukeList was launched five years ago in response to a request from student leaders to more easily identify campus research opportunities. It was redesigned this semester, with category names changed and given more prominence on the page: Jobs, For Sale, Housing, Lost & Found, Services, Rides and Community.
The use of DukeList, which requires a Duke NetID, about doubled in the past several months compared to the same time period last year, Kauffman said.
Graduate students tend to hear about DukeList as a place to find roommates, said Chris Marsicano, a second-year master's student in the Sanford School of Public Policy. When Marsicano first moved to Durham, he used DukeList to find a place to live. When he left that apartment, DukeList helped him find a sublet.
"DukeList is great," Marsicano said. "I literally owe my entire first-year living experience to DukeList."
Mike Habashi, a member of Duke Student Government, prompted the redesign last year when he suggested creating a site for students to buy and sell things.
"He didn't know we already had a place where students could do that," said Kauffman, who worked with Trinity Technical Services and P'unk Avenue, a Philadelphia website company, to redesign the site. "Undergraduates who know about DukeList usually know they can find part-time jobs there. Longer time employees tend to know DukeList as the former Trading Post, where you can sell cars or furniture. Now it looks more like a Craigslist for the Duke community, which is one way to think of it."
To get the word out about the redesign, Carolyn Heiman, a junior majoring in English, created and started implementing a DukeList marketing plan this semester for undergraduates that includes social media.
A lot of students use student Facebook groups to sell or post found items, Kauffman said. "That is great, but it's hard to search and, most importantly, it leaves out all the Duke employees as well as students who are not members or who miss the posting. Our recommendation is for people to quickly post first on DukeList and then use additional means of advertising."
Marsicano agrees.
"DukeList as already a great resource for graduate students. You can find rides to the airport, great off-campus housing options, and even buy a used car, but the redesign makes the whole site easier to use," he said. "It turns an already great resource into something to be checked daily."