With a click of the mouse, students tired of trudging around campus to get their questions answered may finally be able to get all the advice they need in one place.

Launched nationally Feb. 12 by five college graduates, including a UC Berkeley alumnus, www.twocent.com allows users to ask questions and obtain answers about all topics related to college life, said CEO and Harvard University graduate Simon Shin.

The Web site, which is available to more than 150 colleges, reaches out to current students, alumni and faculty.

According to Shin, inspiration for the site came from the founders' own college experiences.

"We were thinking about the one thing we found most difficult about college, and that was that we all had a lot of questions but not enough resources," Shin said. "A lot of time was wasted."

The site aims to ease students' lives by allowing them to get answers quickly and easily from people who have gone through or are going through the same thing, he said.

UC Berkeley graduate and site Vice President of Technology Allen Kim said he was motivated in part to create the Web site after experiencing the freedom of expression and congregation embodied by student demonstrations in front of Sproul Hall.

"Cal has a long history of students expressing themselves and being dedicated to free speech," he said. "Students can gather and express themselves freely on campus, and now we're trying to create an analogous format on the Internet."

Kim also drew from his experiences in his fraternity at UC Berkeley.

"I was able to ask the kinds of questions to the older members of my fraternity, and I was hoping to make those kinds of interactions available online," Kim said.

Kim and Shin said they anticipate the site becoming a permanent resource for students to browse and retrieve information, similar to sites like Yahoo! Answers and Wikipedia.

"Not only do we want to facilitate students getting their questions answered, but we want to record them so that future students can learn and build upon those previous interactions," Kim said.

The site's restricted user base ensures that responses are of high quality and relevance, unlike some other user-edited sites, he said. Although anyone can browse through posts, only registered students, alumni and faculty can actually post answers.

"You know you're not going to get some immature 12-year-old ranting about stuff you don't know or care about," Kim said. "You're going to get an educated and respectable response."

Shin said that since the site's launch, many students have posted questions about how to get jobs, internships and dates. Currently featured on the site are queries such as, "Has anyone tried absinthe?" and, "Is it harder to get into a dental program or med school?"

Shin stressed that the site is receptive to users, and that he and his co-founders will continue to develop it based on the feedback.

"We built this for the college communities and for students, so we want to make sure they're happy with it," Shin said.

Tags: TWOCENT.COM, UC BERKELEY ALUMNI