Inspiration
With two of us being math majors, we've come to find that communication between peers becomes sparse at the higher levels. It's difficult to get assistance from professors, and oftentimes students must rely on their peers... but how do they talk to them? Our website makes this process seamless, by offering an option for students to connect with peers in their same classes to seek assistance, or maybe just a study group. Plus, with a global chat, Friends by Course offers a great option to meet new and interesting people at UIUC.
What it does
Friends by Course allows students to connect with peers across campus to build a strong supporting network in times of struggle. Our website allows users to create a profile for themselves, fill in the courses they've taken, and expand their network. Through our search page, users can find others that are enrolled in or have taken the class they may be struggling in (or offering help!). Users can engage with these new connections via email or global chat, but private messaging is to come.
How we built it
Our backend is entirely firebase, and our frontend is in react.
Challenges we ran into
Given our lack of experience with everything having to do with this project, we ran into pretty sharp halts at every point in our project. At each stopping point, we had to do very in depth research to navigate the web design process and decide the ideal step forward.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're very proud of our project design and goal setting. Having competed in another competition beforehand, we excelled in allocating tasks, setting goals, and collaborating effectively.
What we learned
None of us had any experience with firebase, so our whole experience with it was a learning experience in itself. Throughout the process, due to the immense research needed, we picked up on countless pieces of knowledge in the realms of html, javaScript, and css.
What's next for Friends by Course
Next up is creating a private messaging system for users to interact directly. The global chat is a good start, but we'd really like to build a communication platform for individuals to interact privately in means more effective than plain old email.
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