Transition-year students Helen MacMahon, Ellen McCrossan and Nicole Brennan of Seamount College, Kinvara, Co Galway, pictured launching NerdMe. Photo credit: Reg Gordon
With second-level students scrambling to cram in as much information as possible before the Junior and Leaving Cert exams in June, three enterprising transition-year students from Galway have come up with colourful study aids for their fellow students around the country via their new NerdMe business.
Ellen McCrossan, Helen MacMahon and Nicole Brennan of Seamount College in Kinvara, Co Galway, are behind the new venture. They have just launched their study stationery, which they are calling NerdMe, in an effort to create a bit of nerd chic for students, in the lead up to the exams this summer.
The trio said today they initially set up NerdMe as their mini-company as part of their transition-year studies.
However, they managed to catch the attention of local schools in their area and then they went on to win first place at the Galway Student Enterprise Awards a few weeks ago, so they decided to take their business venture to the commercial space.
The study aids they have created include ‘Revise Me’ bookmarks and ‘Remember Me’ stickers.
“While studying for the Junior Cert last year, we all found that keeping notes organised was very stressful and highlighting all our notes took too much time,” explained McCrossan.
“We carried out a lot of research before manufacturing the product. We held focus groups and found people wanted to stay away from the luminous colours. Pink, blue and green were the most popular colours on the colour chart we offered them.”
She said they also wanted to add the colour orange to their range. “From our research, we found that orange is a colour associated with memory and used to aid people with dyslexia.”
Nerd chic!
So how did the three students come up with such funky branding?
“Nerd chic is very fashionable at the moment with TV shows such as The Big Bang Theory growing in popularity, so we decided on the nerd-style glasses for our logo,” said McCrossan.
“We also feel that this is a brand that we can develop and roll out other study material, revision books, pencils.”
McCrossan said the Revise Me bookmarks allow students to highlight the section of the book they need to revise, and index material with Remember Me highlights. The bookmarks also have a tick box option for students to check once they have finished revising. She said the study aids could also be used as flash cards in the run up to the exams.
In addition to a website from which students can purchase the NerdMe materials, the three young entrepreneurs have also created a Facebook page.
