Freshman Roommates Turned Into Tech Marvels — The Heights

For many college students, finding a roommate can be tough during freshman year. You might share a room with someone you instantly get along with, someone you talk to once a day (and maybe a few grunts or nods if you’re lucky), or someone you hate.

But a new category has emerged among freshman roommates: the creative website-building duo.

Computer Science majors Sebastian Pucher and Andrew Boessen, both roommates and MCAS ’26 alumni, turned their freshman duo into a startup: Eagle ReviewThe website provides Boston College students with written information and numerical ratings about professors and courses and already has about 2,000 users, Boessen said.

Two sophomores looking for roommates for their freshman year met through social media and bonded over their shared interest in technology.

“I remember looking at a lot of Andrew’s projects when we were looking for a roommate, and we just clicked,” Pucher said. “That led to this year and brainstorming bigger projects we could do.”

Both Pucher and Boessen came to Boston College with experience in the computer science world. In high school, they both joined computer science clubs and tried their hand at computer science competitions.

“I’ve been passionate about technology for as long as I can remember and I love getting hands-on experience with different things. My roommate and I have a lot of similarities in that regard,” Pucher said.

The duo’s first project together dates back to their fall freshman year at BC, when they competed in Hack the Heights, a collaborative coding competition hosted through the BC Computer Science Society.

At Hack the Heights, the duo said they created a website called “BC Bites” that aims to help BC students find the best food options on campus. The website is designed to pull real-time data from BC’s food menus and display the most popular options at a given time, allowing users to vote on their favorite dishes.

“That was our first foray into working together as a team,” Pucher said. “That kind of sparked an interest in us that we wanted to create something to help the BC community and other students here.”

Pucher and Boessen then entered an Arduino competition through Make BC, challenging students to use a microcontroller kit that continuously runs a single code script.

“We lived in Newton and had really crappy dorms,” Boessen said. “The window shade was a huge annoyance because it was always broken, so I came up with the idea of ​​making a motorized, automatic window shade for a dorm.”

Boessen then attached a motor to the existing curtain reel so that it could be controlled remotely and programmed to open and close automatically. In the morning, Boessen, lying in bed, could lower or open his curtains with the push of a button.

In the meantime, Pucher has come up with a solution to keep dorm plants alive during the winter break. Pucher designed an automatic irrigation system that uses soil moisture sensors to monitor the plants’ moisture levels and automatically water them when needed.

Pucher came first and Boessen came second with their projects.

“There’s actually a prize amount, but we’re just friends and we don’t really care about that kind of stuff, we just split the prize money,” Pucher said. “I think we won about $100 total. When we came back here last August, we were just bursting with energy about what our next project could be.”

By their sophomore year, the duo wasted no time in focusing on their next project: Eagle Eval.

“The conception was literally move-in day,” Pucher said. “We went back to our room, walked to brunch, and talked together all day. We were just reminiscing about each other’s history over the summer. Then we were just brainstorming, going back and forth.”

The two decided they wanted to improve BC’s course evaluation system, which they felt was confusing and difficult to use.

“We wanted to improve on that and make it more user-friendly and accessible for students,” Pucher said. “We looked at what BC had. The specific data they gave us for course evaluations—numerical values—made sense, but the webpage seemed outdated. We thought we could improve on that to help students make better, more informed decisions about their coursework and their professors.”

While the idea for Eagle Eval was born in August 2023, the website was finalized in November when the Beta version was released for spring semester registration. The duo then rebuilt in February, making several changes and updates to address feedback they received from users.

The website now provides comprehensive course and professor reviews, showing both overall course ratings and individual ratings for each professor teaching the course. To calculate an overall class average, the website compiles the ratings of all professors teaching the same course. Students can also view each professor individually and see all the courses they have taught.

“We essentially wanted to make Rate My Professor completely redundant,” Pucher said. “We wanted to beat Rate My Professor.”

The site’s marketing plan consisted of just two things: word of mouth and Herrd. Wilson Baker, MCAS ’26, and a friend of the duo, were identified as key players in Eagle Eval’s advertising.

“Some people in front of me in my math class that I’ve never spoken to in my life were using it, which was really cool to see,” Baker said. “I’ve heard nothing but good things, to be honest. There was a tiny, tiny bug in the system that I found because I’m on the website all the time. I brought it to Sebastian’s attention, and Andrew fixed it in 20 minutes.”

Baker praised the duo’s work ethic, adding that Pucher’s character was the main reason he was determined to promote Eagle Eval.

“When Sebastian told me he was doing Eagle Eval with his roommate Andrew this fall, I wanted to be a part of it because I know Sebastian is a hard worker,” Baker said.

Eagle Eval hasn’t just caught the attention of students, it’s also attracted interest from investors. Pucher said an analyst from SSC Venture Partners is interested in investing between $25,000 and $100,000.

“We really liked our idea, but it was really cool to see the enthusiasm from other people about it and to have real people reach out to us and offer to turn it into money,” Pucher said.

Despite the opportunity to make money, the founders decided against it, saying they prioritized the website’s accessibility and community impact over profit. Now, the website is entirely self-funded, and Pucher said they pay an estimated $15-20 per month.

Baker said Eagle Eval has attracted interest from investors and students, and the website’s success speaks to the hard work of its founders.

“Sebastian is one of those guys who can be successful at anything he sets his mind to,” Baker said. “He holds himself to a very high standard in terms of his accomplishments in life and everything he does.”

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