Alice

Inspiration

Tufts SIS sucks. Every Tufts student knows the frustration of navigating SIS, consulting multiple advisors, and relying on a messy Google Sheet just to understand what’s needed to graduate. The system is convoluted, making it difficult for students and advisors to stay aligned on student goals. Not to mention the added pressure of class enrollment season and the challenge of tracking requirements. We knew there had to be a better way—so we built Alice.

What it does

Alice is an AI-powered academic management platform that simplifies class searches, degree tracking, and advising. It provides students with real-time insights into their academic progress, personalized course recommendations, and a centralized hub for planning their path to graduation. Advisors can also access clear, up-to-date student information, improving communication and guidance.

How we built it

We developed Alice with the GPT-4o API and Next.js. The backend utilizes comprehensive context windows to ensure specialized knowledge base to advising tailored to Tufts University, ensuring an accurate and all-encompassing AI assistant capable of providing students with personalized support.

Challenges we ran into

User experience: Designing an interface that is both easy to navigate while displaying necessary information

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Intuitive and clean UI with the AI chat feature with direct access to student profiles.

What we learned

The complexity that comes with designing intuitive interfaces and the importance of user feedback. After speaking with a couple people at JumboHack, we revisited design plans to better suit what the problem is and how to solve it. For example, we got rid of filters for class search entirely and instead relied on the chat feature to search for classes to save time from filter selection.

What's next for Alice

Improve Alice's capabilities at Tufts by integrating directly into SIS architecture and decreasing latency. By integrating into SIS directly, more students have access to degree planner platforms. Beyond Tufts, our ultimate goal is to make academic planning effortless, empowering students to take control of their education.

Built With

• gpt-4oapi
• next.js
• tailwindcss