Inspiration
Personas: Sally, a CS sophomore at UNC, struggles with securing her first tech internship and seeks the InternGram community for guidance and insights. Gwen, a 2020 UNC graduate, now a full-time Software Engineer after multiple internships, shares her journey and insights on InternGram to help younger students like Sally navigate their internship experiences and career development. Fiona, a motivated freshman at UNC, majoring in CS, actively looks for volunteer opportunities on InternGram to get involved in her community, in turn, potentially enhancing her internship prospects. Sophia, a senior approaching graduation at UNC, offers her insights on InternGram, including multiple posts regarding her sophomore and junior year internships and volunteer ventures, hoping to aid students like Fiona in making impactful applications to potential employers. The inspiration for InternGram stems from our collective experiences as UNC students navigating the challenging landscape of internship and volunteer searches. Recognizing the importance of peer guidance and the lack of a centralized platform for UNC students to share and learn from each other’s experiences, we were inspired to create InternGram. Our goal is to foster a supportive community where students like Sally, Gwen, Fiona, and Sophia can connect, share insights, and access tailored opportunities that align with their career aspirations.
What it does
Sign Up: Users can navigate to the Sign-Up button on our home page component to access the range of InternGram features and personalize their experience by filling out their profile. Explore Internship Opportunities: Users can dive into a wealth of internship experiences shared by students at UNC by navigating to the internship page component and using the search bar and filters to populate opportunities that they may be interested in. Explore Volunteer Prospects: Users can discover volunteer opportunities, shown on the volunteer page component, related to their field of study and get involved in activities in the local Chapel Hill area by using the search bar and filters to load potential social good pathways for them. Contribute: Users are capable of sharing their internship and volunteer experiences to help fellow students, with the hope of inspiring and guiding others on their career paths.
How we built it
Our implementation of our volunteer and internship opportunities platform exhibits a thoughtful approach to enhancing user interaction and functionality through the integration of dynamic content manipulation using JavaScript. By structuring the application with a clear and intuitive UI, including a navigation bar for ease of access, a form for adding new volunteer opportunities, and a filter section, we’ve laid a solid foundation for user engagement. The addition of a category selection dropdown in the post form and corresponding checkboxes for filtering allows users to both categorize new posts and filter existing ones based on their interests, such as Finance, Technology, Healthcare, E-Commerce, and Marketing. The JavaScript functions we’ve implemented, toggleAddPostForm, addNewPost, and applyFilters, work together seamlessly to provide interactive elements on the page. toggleAddPostForm dynamically shows or hides the form for adding new posts, enhancing the user experience by keeping the interface clean and focused. The addNewPost function captures user input from the form, including the selected category, and dynamically adds a new post to the page, immediately reflecting the user's contribution. Finally, the applyFilters function is particularly notable for its dual functionality; it not only filters posts based on category selection through checkboxes but also integrates a search feature that filters posts by keywords found in their titles or descriptions. This dual filtering capability significantly enhances the platform's usability by enabling users to efficiently navigate through the volunteer opportunities based on specific criteria.
Challenges we ran into
Challenges we ran into: • Integrating Firebase: Integrating the Firebase database with our file posed a significant challenge initially. However, after research and troubleshooting, we managed to establish a successful connection. • Implementing the Pop-Up Feature: We encountered difficulties in implementing a pop-up feature for adding new posts using a checkbox method. Despite our best efforts to resolve the issue, time constraints prevented us from finding a satisfactory solution. • Filtering Opportunities: Crafting a feature to filter opportunities presented its own set of challenges. After exploring several approaches, we finally discovered a method that not only worked but also enhanced the functionality of our platform.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud to have created a platform that addresses the specific needs of UNC students in their internship and volunteer pursuits. Although we did not fully complete the technical implementation we are proud of the potential impact InternGram can have on the career development of students.
What we learned
The development of InternGram taught us the importance of user-centric design. We learned that creating a space where students feel comfortable sharing their experiences requires a balance of usability and functionality.
What's next for InternGram
Despite achieving our main goals for this platform, we have some functionalities that we believe would enhance InternGram's user experience. Extend the platform to universities beyond UNC, creating a widespread network of students and professionals. Implement personalized recommendation algorithms to suggest internship and volunteer opportunities based on user profiles and preferences. Introduce a mentorship program connecting experienced professionals or alumni with students seeking guidance and insights. Incorporate a real-time events calendar featuring career fairs, workshops, and networking sessions to keep users informed about industry-related activities. Explore collaborations with corporate partners for exclusive internship postings and virtual career fairs, enhancing the range of opportunities available to students.
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