Semestify

An AI-powered web platform that helps university students retain and organize course knowledge throughout the semester.

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Semestify

Inspiration

University students often juggle multiple courses, assignments, and lecture notes without a single, streamlined system to keep them on track. We were inspired to create Semestify after seeing classmates struggle with scattered resources, inconsistent study schedules, and difficulty retaining key concepts. We wanted a tool that not only organizes coursework but also harnesses AI to help students learn more effectively throughout the semester.

What It Does

Semestify is an AI-powered web platform that centralizes and streamlines your semester management:

  • Semester & Course Management: Add courses, set goals, and track progress over time.
  • Syllabus Parsing & Weekly Schedule Generation: Automatically parse syllabi to create a comprehensive, week-by-week breakdown of tasks, readings, and exams.
  • Lecture Slide Processing & Summarization: Upload lecture files (e.g., PDFs, slides) and let our AI provide concise summaries to help you study more efficiently.
  • AI-Powered Note Creation & Progress Tracking: Generate study notes from your course materials, monitor your understanding, and identify areas needing more review.

How We Built It

  • Frontend: Built with React/Next.js and styled using Tailwind CSS for a modern, responsive UI.
  • Backend: Implemented with FastAPI (Python), providing robust and efficient API endpoints.
  • AI Integration: Leveraged the Cohere API to handle text parsing, summarization, and note generation.
  • Storage: Used Google Cloud Storage to store lecture files and other large data assets.
  • Database: Chose Firebase Firestore for its flexible, real-time database capabilities.
  • Orchestration: Integrated these components to ensure a seamless flow of data between the frontend, backend, and AI services.

Challenges We Ran Into

  1. Parsing Diverse File Formats: Ensuring consistent parsing and summarization for various file types (PDFs, slides, docs) required careful handling of text extraction.
  2. AI Summarization Fine-Tuning: Balancing between too much or too little detail in summaries meant experimenting with prompt engineering and model parameters.
  3. Scalability & Performance: Handling multiple users uploading large lecture files pushed us to optimize our backend and storage solutions.
  4. Time Constraints: Managing a full feature set within a short development window was challenging, requiring strict prioritization.

Accomplishments That We’re Proud Of

  • Successfully building a platform that integrates multiple services (AI, storage, database) into one cohesive system.
  • Implementing robust summarization features that genuinely help students study more efficiently.
  • Creating a user-friendly interface that makes complex AI functionality feel accessible and intuitive.
  • Setting up real-time progress tracking and notifications to keep students motivated throughout the semester.

What We Learned

  • AI Integration: We deepened our understanding of how to leverage large language models for summarization and note generation.
  • Full-Stack Development: Building a platform from scratch gave us hands-on experience in frontend frameworks, backend APIs, and cloud services.
  • User Experience: Talking to potential users helped us refine our interface, ensuring the platform meets actual student needs.
  • Team Collaboration: We honed our communication and project management skills by coordinating tasks across different parts of the tech stack.

What’s Next for Semestify

Assignment Assistance: Integrate AI-driven tools to help students brainstorm ideas, structure their work, and refine final submissions while maintaining academic integrity.

  • Personalized Study Plans: Use AI to tailor study recommendations based on individual strengths and weaknesses.
  • Collaboration Features: Enable group study sessions, shared notes, and discussion boards for classmates.
  • Advanced Analytics: Provide deeper insights into learning patterns, helping students identify the most effective study strategies.
  • Mobile App: Offer a dedicated mobile app for on-the-go access and push notifications for reminders.

We believe Semestify can truly demystify the semester by giving students the AI-powered tools they need to stay organized, learn effectively, and excel in their coursework.

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