Career Compass

Inspiration

• Developed by first-year international students who struggled to navigate campus events.
• Even with hundreds of clubs and events, it was hard to find opportunities that matched their major, career path, or personal interests.
• Social media feeds were overwhelming, and important events were easily missed.

This experience inspired the idea of an AI-powered app to simplify campus event discovery and planning.

Problem

• Navigation is difficult: Students have access to many events and resources, but figuring out which ones are relevant is overwhelming.

• Students miss opportunities: First-year and even upper-year students often don’t know which events to attend or which clubs align with their goals.

• Social media isn’t enough: Students either follow too few accounts and miss events, or follow too many and get lost in endless posts.

• Marketing war : Attendance often reflects club popularity rather than event value. Overlapping events create confusion and reduce participation.

• Smaller clubs get overlooked: Clubs with fewer resources or shorter histories struggle to reach students, even when offering highly relevant events.

Solution

Career Compass An AI - Powered app that provides :

• Personalized recommendations: Users input their major and career path, and the app suggests events tailored to their interests.

• AI-powered personalization: The app learns from user behavior and event ratings to surface the most relevant opportunities.

• Quality-focused visibility: Clubs are rewarded based on event value and substance, not just attendance or popularity.

• Fair chance for all clubs: Smaller or newer clubs get equal opportunity to reach the right audience.

• Reduces confusion: Avoids overlapping events and helps students plan efficiently, ensuring no valuable event is missed.

How we built it

Next.js for the frontend and server-side rendering, ShadCN/ui for Tailwind CSS-based UI components, Firebase for authentication and database, Gemini API for AI-powered recommendations, TypeScript for type-safe development

Challenges we ran into

API integration was challenging since neither of us had worked with it before, so we spent time brainstorming fallback solutions to ensure the app remained valuable even without external APIs. Early planning helped us design a strong core experience while the integration evolved. We also worked through typical frontend design quirks while refining the overall user experience.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our goal was to build a Real-World Ready AI Product that users can trust:

Secure & Verified Ratings: Users can only rate events they actually attended. Clubs provide a unique access token at each event, which attendees use to submit ratings from 1–5. Comments are disabled to prevent misuse or harassment.

Reliable Fallback System: If the AI model experiences downtime, the app continues to function by ranking clubs based on career paths and historical ratings, ensuring a seamless experience.

Strong Data Privacy: We use Firebase authentication, never access passwords, and only collect minimal information—email, major, and career path—to protect user privacy and build confidence in our platform.

What we learned

Learned to use Gemini API, Firebase, and frontend design, turning vague familiarity into hackathon-ready skills.

What's next for Career Compass

With both developers having strong connections to UBC clubs, the next step is to start promoting the app and reach every student on campus. Future features include a buddy system to help students discover peers attending similar events and make meaningful connections.

Built With

• firebase
• gemini-api
• next.js
• shadcn/ui
• typescript