NYU Shanghai student project
NYUSHTorch is a student-built academic planning and peer-learning platform for the decisions NYU Shanghai students make across four years: what to take, when to take it, how requirements fit together, what can be completed away, and what other students experienced in a course.
Instead of treating planning, degree progress, prerequisite research, study-away equivalencies, reflections, learning resources, and alumni experience as separate tasks, NYUSHTorch brings them together around one student profile and one saved academic plan.
Through Torchlight, course reflections, learning pathways, and the Marketplace, individual experience becomes shared knowledge. Students and alumni can illuminate routes for one another, exchange useful resources, and form a community that makes academic planning less isolated and more informed.
Platform
Build a semester-by-semester plan for a major, minor, approved double major, and concentration. Load a realistic default route, move courses between terms, record placement exams, compare saved copies, and optionally add paid winter or summer study.
Recommendations use the selected program, concentration, graduating class, completed prerequisites, course availability, and the requirements still open in the plan.
Read degree progress in worksheet order, including Core Curriculum, major requirements, concentration choices, capstone work, and electives. Requirement logic supports required courses, choose-one groups, select-X groups, category courses, and equivalent courses.
Bulletin rules can vary by graduating class, while language requirements follow the student identity saved in the profile.
Explore approved course equivalencies across NYU locations, plan study-away terms, and find non-Shanghai courses that can satisfy an open requirement. The planner checks equivalent courses so the same academic content is not counted twice.
New York is used as the common default study-away route, while students can still explore other available locations.
Open a course to review credits, campus, semester availability, prerequisites, anti-requisites, requirement placement, and equivalent offerings. Student plans and reflections can also show when students usually take a course and how difficult it felt by year.
Follow prerequisite routes from foundations to advanced topics, including requirements with all-of and one-of choices. Students can share reflections with their class year, difficulty, workload, recommendation, and practical advice for future students.
Preview, upload, discover, purchase, rate, and report student learning resources through the token marketplace. Seller ratings, purchase records, quality checks, and moderation controls support a more trustworthy exchange.
Resources connect study plans with practical support created by students who have already taken the course.
Discover student and alumni pathways by major, graduate study, internship, and career direction. Shared stories connect course choices with what came next, giving current students context that a requirement sheet cannot provide.
By turning individual experience into shared guidance, Torchlight helps students learn from one another and form a community across cohorts.
Keep saved plans, reflections, purchased and uploaded resources, seller ratings, profile details, and account activity in one place.
One profile keeps each student's plans and contributions connected across the platform.
Personalized planning
Data and responsibility
Academic data is assembled from NYU and NYU Shanghai Bulletins, curriculum worksheets, published course schedules, approved study-away equivalency lists, and maintained project datasets. Reflections, ratings, pathways, and marketplace resources are contributed by members of the student community.
Important: NYUSHTorch is not an official NYU service and does not replace Albert, the current NYU Shanghai Bulletin, official degree worksheets, or academic advising. Always verify important academic decisions with official NYU sources and your advisor.