Inspiration
At the University of Rochester, we’ve noticed that not all majors provide equal opportunities for mentorship, leaving many students—especially those from underrepresented or niche fields—without guidance. That’s where our project, MelMentor, steps in.
What it does
MelMentor is a user-friendly platform built to bridge this gap. Students gain access to mentorship that’s accessible, inclusive, and completely free. Our platform promotes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion by ensuring all students—regardless of major or background—can benefit from meaningful mentorship. For example, students in less-represented disciplines like art history or underrepresented groups in STEM now have a direct channel to find support. This aligns with Fidelity’s vision for creating financially responsible and inclusive tech. By removing financial barriers to mentorship, MelMentor embodies the spirit of accessible education and opportunities
How we built it
Using a React and Bootstrap-powered front end, a robust Spring Boot backend, and hosted on a GoDaddy domain, our platform matches lowerclassmen with upperclassmen mentors in their respective majors.
Challenges we ran into
Implementing the backend, front, database and connecting them turned out to be a challenging task to do in 42 hours challenge. We often see ourselves questioning our ideas to come with areas for improvements and potential features that help us competes, differs from those who provides same services.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are happy that we were able to finish all the core functionality of our website. We were able to agree on a solid idea and distribute work to eachother.
What we learned
Throughout the process of building MelMentor, we learned the importance of clear communication and collaboration under tight time constraints. Working together in a fast-paced environment taught us how to break down complex problems into manageable tasks and how to prioritize features based on impact. We also gained experience in integrating multiple technologies, from the front-end design with React, Tailwind and Bootstrap to the backend implementation with Spring Boot. Additionally, we realized the significance of user-centered design and accessibility, ensuring that our platform is easy to navigate and inclusive of all students, regardless of their major or background.
What's next for MelMentor
We will implement new features so it is easier for mentors and mentees to reach out to each other. By leveraging some Machine Learning tools in the future, we hope students can find better match for themselves as well as ensuring everyone has an opportunity to thrive. Aside from that, we will
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