Find the people in your classes

You will spend hundreds of hours this term sitting a few feet from the same people, and you will never speak to most of them. That is the strangest thing about a big lecture hall: a room full of people with your exact schedule, your exact deadlines, your exact professor — and somehow it stays silent. Tide's class group chats exist to break that silence on purpose.

How does Tide know who's in my classes?

Three ways, from most accurate to least:

• Import your schedule (best). Drop in the .ics calendar file your university gives you and Tide reads your exact courses and your section — the specific lecture and discussion times you're actually enrolled in. That section detail is the whole point: a 300-person course split into ten discussions isn't one group, it's ten.
• Pick from the catalog. No calendar handy? Choose your courses straight from your campus catalog. Tide has catalogued real course listings across every UC, most of the CSUs, and dozens of private and community colleges, so you're picking your actual classes, not typing a guess.
• Add a section manually. Know your meeting time? Enter it and Tide matches you to classmates in that same slot.

Then Tide does the matching. Everyone who shares your section lands in the same place, and the group chat is already there waiting — you don't have to build it, name it, or hunt for an invite link in a 400-reply thread.

Why section group chats beat a giant course chat

A "Chem 1A group chat" with 400 people is noise. Nobody in it is in your discussion, nobody has your TA, and half the messages are about a section you're not in. Tide scopes the chat to your section, so the people in it are the ones sitting near you on Tuesday. That's who you'll actually study with, split a problem set with, and walk out of the building next to. Smaller and relevant beats huge and anonymous every time.

It also means a real study group forms without anyone having to organize one. Reviewing before the midterm stops being a thing you should do and becomes a thread you're already in.

How do I find a study group or study buddy?

Open your class in Tide, see who's in your section, and message them — or just post "anyone want to review before Thursday?" in the chat that already has the right people in it. There's no cold outreach. You're not DMing a stranger; you're talking to someone with the same exam on the same day. The shared context does the hard part for you, which is why classmates are the lowest-effort friendships on campus.

This matters more than it sounds. In the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Making Caring Common report (2021), 36% of all Americans reported "serious loneliness," and the rate among young adults was even higher. A study partner you see twice a week is one of the most reliable cures for that — it builds a routine, not just a one-off hangout.

Everyone here is a verified student

Every Tide account is verified with a .edu email, so the classmate you're messaging is a real student at your school — no bots, no randoms, no one who graduated four years ago lurking in the course chat. That's the difference between Tide and the anonymous gossip feeds. Apps like Sidechat, Fizz, and Yik Yak are built to post about people; Tide is built to meet them. If you want the full contrast, see Tide vs Fizz or Tide vs Sidechat.

What you get with classes on Tide

• Your real roster. See who's in your section, not a wall of strangers from every section of the course.
• A chat that's already built. Deadlines, "what'd you get for #4," study-group plans — all in one place from week one.
• Real-but-optional identity. Show your name or keep it light. You're verified either way, so trust isn't the trade-off.
• More than one way in. Classes are one of three ways Tide helps you meet people — alongside the Daily Tide (one interest-matched student from your campus each day) and campus events.

Set it up in under a minute

Verify with your .edu, import your schedule or pick your courses, and your section chats appear. That's it. The founder built Tide after his own time at UC San Diego — a 30,000-person school that somehow felt isolating — precisely because the people who could have been his friends were right there in his classes the whole time, unmet.

Stop walking past your easiest friendships. Open Tide on the web, find your campus, or grab the iOS beta on TestFlight and see who's actually in your classes.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find people in my college classes?

Use a .edu-verified app like Tide that maps your enrolled courses to other students in the same class. You add your schedule — importing your university's .ics calendar is the most accurate way — and Tide shows you who's in your specific section and drops you into a group chat with them. From there you can ask questions, swap notes, and find a study group with people who have your exact deadlines.

Is there a group chat for my college class?

On Tide, yes. Once you add a course, Tide places you in a group chat scoped to your specific section rather than the whole 300-person course, so the people in it are the ones actually in your discussion. The chat is already built when you join, so you don't have to create one or chase an invite link. Everyone in it is a verified student at your school.

How does Tide know which classes I'm in?

You tell it, in whichever way is easiest. The most accurate is importing the .ics calendar file your school provides, which captures your exact courses and section times. You can also pick courses directly from your campus catalog, which Tide has built out for every UC and many other colleges, or add a section's meeting time manually. Tide then matches you with classmates in the same section.

How do I find a study group or study buddy in my classes?

Open your class in Tide, see who's in your section, and message someone directly — or just post in the section group chat that already has the right people in it. Because everyone has the same exam on the same day, you're not cold-messaging a stranger; the shared class is the reason to talk. Reviewing before a midterm becomes a thread you're already part of.

Is Tide free, and who can use it?

Tide is completely free. It's students-only: every account is verified with a .edu email, so the people in your class group chats are real students at your school. It's live at UC campuses including UCSD, UCLA, UC Irvine, and UC Davis and expanding across US colleges. You can use it on the web or grab the iOS beta on TestFlight.

What if my class is huge — won't the chat be chaos?

That's exactly why Tide scopes chats to your section instead of the whole course. A 400-person lecture split into ten discussions becomes ten relevant chats, not one noisy one. The people you see are the ones in your meeting time — the same faces you sit near — which keeps the conversation about your actual class and makes a real study group easy to form.