Plagiarism & My Sweat

I have been working on this great idea for a web series. Without disclosing details (although the name does give a preview), it's called College Bound. For my class Producing Essentials I had to select an investor, I decided upon Kaplan - a popular test prep company in the US.

After turning in 75% of the project last week, I was researching Kaplan's site over the weekend and found THIS. Check out the second half of the right hand column.

My idea was so good, it already existed. Granted, mine has a number of better features including video instead of just audio, but the principles, the selected advertiser, and even the NAME are the same!

I couldn't hold it in, so I asked to speak to my prof after class and explain the situation to her. She was incredibly understanding, and told me not to even worry about rewriting my proposal for another investor nor renaming my project! This made me very happy, because I've put a ton of work into it and lost sleep over the ordeal of being thought a plagiarist. (is that a real word?)

Then she asked me "So have you considered pitching it to them?" I looked at her all confused and said, "like, actually suggest they do it?" (my brilliant response); she went on to say I have one of her top 3 favorite ideas in the class (60 people), and that I should seriously consider shopping it around to relevant investors.

Now I may know what to do without a forth course next semester...