COS Students have found a new way to get together these last few weeks, with the release of student hubs on the popular chatting app Discord.

Students have already created a number of servers on the COS Student Hub for classes, student interaction, clubs, gaming, and more. These are presented when a student adds their school email to discord.

According to the Discord General FAQ for the Student Hubs, “Your school email address will be used to verify which student hub you can access. It will not be visible to other users on Discord, and it will not be shared with your school.” The COS Student Hub servers are run and managed completely by students at COS.

While students do the majority, non-students may join the discords through an invite. Discord does have a list of student hub guidelines that could lead to punishments if not followed.

A few of those guidelines include “Abide by the Community Guidelines and Terms of Service, Foster a healthy and positive environment, Ensure academic honesty. . .” There are many rules to abide by and the ones expected to enforce those rules are the students.

This gives students who create and moderate servers the complete responsibility of running and managing these online student groups.

“These Discord servers are bridging the invisible gap in our college community. . .” said Xander Kong, the COS LGBTQ+ Hangout server owner, and manager, “. . . and I hope those who are not familiar with Discord can see that this is a great place.” Kong had heard through Discord about the new Student Hubs around 2 weeks ago and began creating the server to provide a safe place for students and supporters.

Benjamin Cates, the second manager for the server had the same idea when he contacted Kong who informed him that a server was already in the making.

“It lessens the barrier to meeting new people,” explained Cates, “you can’t really make a club on Zoom.” He has been able to meet new students and make new friends using this addition to Discord.

To gather more COS students on this hub and on their server, Cates passed out a QR code at Club Rush on Thursday, that would allow students to join the server with more haste.

The LGBTQ+ Hangout server has 30 members and continues to grow as more COS students learn about this function.

“When I learned that Discord was starting this college hub feature I got right to work,” commented Brady Brown, creator of the College Years server, “ I decided on this idea (College Years) of an all-in-one place where students could get information and help with school.” He also wanted this server to be a place where students could enjoy social interaction through text channels.

Brown believes that Discord should be used at COS and other colleges to provide expansion in a society that continues to have an online presence. He notes that the use of Discord could provide an efficient way for COS Staff to help students and release information.

Brown hopes that by continuing to expand the College Years server, students in greater numbers can give each other guidance. He also wants to implement tutors to give students access to help that can fit their needs.

“I believe the new feature has a lot of potential for COS and other colleges,” Brown concluded.