pathpilot

PathPilot AI is an AI-powered academic and career navigator that creates personalized degree roadmaps, recommends learning resources, and connects students with internships and career opportunities.

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Project Name

PathPilot AI

Tagline

Your AI-powered academic and career navigator.

Inspiration

New university students often know their degree title but not what the next four years actually demand. Course plans, career expectations, internships, learning resources, and hackathons are scattered across many websites. PathPilot AI gives students a single personalized starting point.

What it does

PathPilot AI lets a student enter their university, country, degree program, interests, graduation year, and career goal. It generates a semester-by-semester academic roadmap, recommends learning resources, suggests career pathways, explains internship preparation steps, proposes hackathon project ideas, and offers a personalized AI Mentor Mode for follow-up questions.

How we built it

  • A simple HTML, CSS, and JavaScript frontend in frontend/
  • Browser localStorage for hackathon-speed demo accounts, profiles, saved roadmaps, and mentor messages
  • Optional Next.js API routes for backend AI calls
  • OpenAI Responses API for structured roadmap generation
  • OpenAI Responses API for mentor follow-up guidance
  • A fallback demo mode so the live presentation still works if the backend or API key is unavailable

OpenAI Usage

PathPilot AI uses the OpenAI Responses API on the server to generate a structured JSON roadmap from a student's academic profile. Mentor Mode sends the student's profile, roadmap summary, and conversation to the model so follow-up advice is personalized to their academic stage and goals.

Challenges we ran into

The largest challenge was keeping the scope realistic for a hackathon. Instead of building a full university curriculum database or scraping live internship listings, the MVP focuses on the core "wow" moment: turning a student's profile into a useful roadmap in under a minute while clearly labeling assumptions.

Another challenge was making the project easy for a small team to keep improving. We started with a richer app structure, then added a plain HTML/CSS/JavaScript frontend so teammates can personalize the UI, adjust copy, and improve the demo without needing to understand a full framework first.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Working end-to-end academic roadmap generator
  • Personalized career and internship guidance
  • Mentor chat that understands the student's generated roadmap
  • Responsive, demo-ready interface
  • Safe fallback mode for judging reliability
  • A simpler editable frontend that the whole team can work on

What we learned

The strongest education products do not just provide more resources. They help students decide what matters now, what can wait, and how today's courses connect to future opportunities.

We also learned that hackathon scope matters. The useful version of PathPilot is not the biggest possible version. It is the version that gives students a credible first plan, clearly labels assumptions, and invites them to keep asking better questions.

What's next for pathpilot

  • Supabase authentication and cloud profile storage
  • Official curriculum lookup tools
  • Live internship and hackathon discovery
  • Calendar export for milestones
  • Resume and portfolio feedback
  • University advisor dashboard

Category

Education

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