About Us
Hey! So you want to know a bit about us aye? Studystrivers was founded and is made by Fintan Gilman with the goal of making educational resources in Ireland accessible for all.
Who is Fintan Gilman? I'm a 20 year old college student currently studying electronic engineering in UCD and I'm also a self taught web developer and programmer.
You can contact me via email at
studystrivers@gmail.com.
I've made Studystrivers in my spare time for two main reasons.
I found while some online resources do exist, most of the resources were either outdated, looked like garbage, were overly complicated or charged students a price which is outrageously high (Usually they were a combination of them all).
I thought that I could maybe change that and make a website that looked beautiful, was up to date and was accessible.
The Big Bad Problems
Exam Questions by Topic
Theres no doubt that exam papers are one of the best ways to study for the Leaving Cert and Junior Cert.
But one of the main problems with the exam papers is that in order to really start utilising them, you've to wait until you've covered most of the material first because you can only answer questions on topics you've looked at.
So why not make a website that has all the exam questions by topic so you can start using them from day 1. You don't have to wait until you've covered most of the course to start answering exam questions
and you can start using them to help you study throughout the entire journey and you don't have to spend ages navigating papers looking for questions you can answer.
Exam Papers
I find it ridiculous that students are still being charged for exam papers which are availibile online for free as pdfs. Why do I find it ridulous you ask?
Well there's about 120,000 students in Ireland who sit the Leaving Cert and Junior Cert every year, each of which have to get 8ish exam papers, one for each subject (7 subjects for LC, 9 for JC). Each exam paper costs about €5/per set of papers, which means that students are spending roughly 120,000 students x 8 sets of papers/per student x €5/per set of papers = €4,800,000 on exam papers. Thats all the while exam papers are online for free... that makes literally no sense. Not to mention all the paper we unneccessarily waste in making them.
And you still have to go online to access the marking schemes for the exam papers anyway. So I thought, why not make a website that has all the exam papers and marking schemes in one place. That way you can access them all in one place, and you can also get them on your phone, tablet or computer easily. You can access more papers online actually because we have all the papers from 2000 onwards, whereas the physical papers usually comprise of 10-15 years of exam papers.
Listening Comprehensions (Aurals)
Listening comprehensions aswell, I found that there was no good way to access them online. Most students have to buy exam papers to get a CD to listen to them. I mean when was the last time anyone under the age of 18 even used a CD player? Not to mention all the struggle in even finding a CD player in your house and then setting it up so you can practice. Yeah and by the way good luck practicing with that CD during after school study.
Most students end up under prepared for aurals because it's literally a mission just to practice them. Well not anymore because we show you the audio file and aural exam paper on the same page so you can practice them in literally a single click. No more messing around with CDs. No more messing around with CD players. As long as you have internet and headphones you can practice them anywhere, anytime now without having to touch the dusty CD player in the attic.
Finding Grinds
I also found that there isn't really a good way for students to find grinds, despite about 60% of leaving cert students getting grinds (Source).
Students usually find grinds through word of mouth, but that doesn't get you the best grinds tutor, it just gets you the grinds tutor that your friend used. There's no way to know if they're actually good or not and your selection in choice is quite limited.
When I went looking for grinds online, I found that there was no good way to find them. I had to go to a bunch of different websites and then I found time and time again they were all garbage to use.
They were also all outdated so there was a poor selection of grinds tutors to choose from.
Some grinds websites even charge the tutors to list grinds ads or the students to contact the grinds teacher, where you might end up paying for a crap tutor. So why not make a website that has all the grinds tutors in one place, that's easy to use and is free for both the tutors and students to use.
Worksheets and Tests
Then for teachers similarly there are no good resources for making worksheets and tests for your students to get the best out of them. I've been a student my whole life and generally the teachers that gave me worksheets and markingschemes after were the best.
Improving the education system in Ireland invlovles making improvements to both the students ability to learn and the teachers ability to teach. But I also found that it was a pain to make worksheets and tests, so most teachers just don't make them as often as they should. So why not make a website that makes it easy to make worksheets and tests for your students. Why spend hours making worksheets with ms word when you can spend minutes using our worksheet builder.
The Solution
So I decided to make Studystrivers, a website that has all the topics, exam papers, marking schemes, listening comprehensions, grinds tutors, worksheet makers and discussion forums in one place.
The design is beautiful, clean and modern, and I've made it stupid easy to use and stupid quick to navigate. So now:
- You don't have to spend ages looking for relevant exam questions for your test next Friday, we've already found and sorted them for you.
- You don't have to spend €40 to haul around bulky exam papers, you can navigate them here for free, super quickly.
- You don't have to deal with the CD and dusty CD player to practice your listening comprehensions. You just need headphones and an internet connection.
- You don't have to spend hours making worksheets, markingschemes and tests on ms word, you can make them in a few minutes clicks automatically.
- You don't have to spend hours looking for a good grinds teacher, you can find the best grinds teacher for you in a few clicks, for free.
- You don't have to browse through a bunch of different websites to find what you're looking for, you can find everything you need in one place.
There's no instruction manual, it's all intuitive and easy to use.
We keep things simple and are laser focused on making the greatest website to ever exist for Irish students. We keep things super simple and are laser focused on making the greatest website to ever exist for Irish students and teachers.
It trys to make the lives of students, teachers and parents easier by making educational resources more accessible and trys to make everything that makes no sense about the Irish education system, make sense.