For many college students, finding a roommate freshman year can be a toss-up. You can either room with someone you instantly click with, someone you talk to maybe once a day (a couple of grunts or nods in your direction as well if you’re lucky), or someone you despise.
However, a new category of freshman-year roommates has emerged: the ingenious website-creating duo.
Computer Science majors Sebastian Pucher and Andrew Boessen, both roommates and MCAS ’26, turned their freshman year double into a startup: Eagle Eval. The website provides Boston College students with written information and numerical ratings for professors and courses, and already has an estimated 2,000 users, Boessen said.
When looking for freshman-year roommates, the two sophomores originally met through social media and bonded about their shared interest in technology.
“When I was looking for roommates, I remember I looked at a lot of Andrew’s projects, and we just kind of clicked,” Pucher said. “That then led to this year and our brainstorming of larger projects that we could do.”
Both Pucher and Boessen came to Boston College with experience in the computer science world. In high school, both participated in computer science clubs and tested their luck in computer science competitions.
“As long as I can remember, I’ve just really been passionate about tech and kind of getting hands-on experience with different things, and my roommate and I share a lot of similarities when it comes to that,” Pucher said.
The duo’s first project together dates back to their freshman fall at BC, when they competed in Hack the Heights, a collaborative coding competition through the BC Computer Science Society.
At Hack the Heights, the duo said they created a website named “BC Bites,” aiming to help BC students find the best food options on campus. The website was designed to take real-time data from BC’s dining menus and let users vote on their favorite dishes, displaying the most popular options at any given time.
“This was kind of our first breakthrough in working together as a team,” said Pucher. “It sort of sparked interest in us that we wanted to create something to help the BC community and other students here.”
Pucher and Boessen then entered a Arduino competition through the Make BC, challenging students to use a microcontroller kit that continuously runs one script of code.
“We lived on Newton, and we had these really crappy dorms,” Boessen said. “It was a big pain because the window shade was always broken, so I had this idea that I would make a motorized, automated window blind for a dorm.”
Boessen then installed a motor onto the existing blind reel, allowing it to be controlled remotely and scheduled to open or close automatically. Laying in bed in the morning, Boessen could lower or open his shade with the click of a button.
Meanwhile, Pucher created a solution to keep his dorm plants alive during winter break. Using soil moisture sensors, Pucher designed an automated irrigation system that would monitor the plants’ moisture levels and automatically water them when needed.
With their projects, Pucher won first place and Boessen won second.
“There’s actually a prize amount, but we’re just buddies and don’t really care too much about that stuff, we just split like the prize money,” Pucher said. “I think we won like, 100 bucks total. When we came back to this last August we were pumped, festering with energy on what our next project could be.”
As sophomore year rolled around, the two wasted no time conceptualizing their next project: Eagle Eval.
“Conception was literally move-in day,” Pucher said. “We moved back in to our room, walked down to brunch and talked the day away together. We were just catching up over the summer. We then were just brainstorming ideas, going back and forth.”
The two decided they wanted to improve BC’s course evaluations—a system they found to be confusing and difficult to use.
“We wanted to improve on that and make it more user-friendly and available to students,” Pucher said. “We looked at what BC had. The particular data it was giving us for course evaluations—the numeric values—made sense, but the webpage looked outdated. We thought we could improve it in a way that would help students make better, more informed decisions about their coursework and professors.”
Though the idea for Eagle Eval was born in August 2023, the website wasn’t finalized until November, when its Beta version was released for spring semester registration. The two then rebuilt it again in February, making various changes and updates to address feedback they received from users.
The website now provides comprehensive course and professor evaluations, displaying both overall course ratings and individual ratings for each professor teaching the course. To calculate an overall class average, the website compiles scores from all professors teaching the same course. Students can also view each professor separately and see all the courses they teach.
“We basically wanted to make Rate My Professor completely obsolete,” Pucher said. “We wanted to beat Rate My Professor.”
The marketing plan for the site coniststed of just two things: word of mouth and Herrd. They identified Wilson Baker, MCAS ’26 and a friend of the duo, as a key player in advertising Eagle Eval.
“In my math class, some of the people in front of me, who I’ve never even spoken to in my whole life, were using it, which was super cool to see,” Baker said. “To be completely honest, I’ve only heard good things. There was a small, tiny little 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 within like 20 minutes.”
Baker praised the work ethic of the duo, adding that Pucher’s character is the main reason he is committed to promoting Eagle Eval.
“When Sebastian told me he was making Eagle Eval with his roommate, Andrew, this fall, I wanted to be a part of it in any way I could, because I know Sebastian is such a hard worker,” Baker said.
Eagle Eval not only attracted students but also piqued the interest of investors—Pucher said an analyst from SSC Venture Partners expressed interest in investing $25K to $100K.
“We really liked our idea, but seeing other people’s enthusiasm about it and real people reaching out and offering to monetize this—that was really cool to see,” Pucher said.
Despite the opportunity to monetize, the founders decided against it, saying they prioritize the website’s accessibility and community impact over profits. Now, the website is fully self-funded, and Pucher said they pay an estimated $15–$20 per month.
As Eagle Eval has gained attention from investors and students alike, Baker said the website’s success points back to the hardworking nature of its founders.
“Sebastian is one of those guys who can succeed in anything he puts his mind to,” Baker said. “He holds himself to a super high standard in terms of his achievements in his life and in terms of everything he does.”
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