Westwood High School Course Advisor

Simplified Course Catalog
Example Course Modal
Four-Year-Plan Builder
Sending Your Four Year Plan
Help Page with the AI Chatbot

Field I decided to do

Education

Community I decided to give back to

My school, Westwood High School

Inspiration

I was inspired by the countless hours students spend navigating complex course catalogs and building their schedules. In my school district, Round Rock ISD, there is this long course catalog worth 200+ pages which becomes a hassle when trying to find the specific course in the catalog, even with the table of contents or an index. Moreover, the course catalog addresses the district as a whole, and not for only the courses at Westwood High School, as different schools in the district may have a course that is not found in other schools. I wanted to create a tool that would streamline this process and empower students to make informed decisions about their academic future.

Round Rock ISD Course Catalog

What it does

Our AI-powered tool, the Westwood High School Course Advisor, revolutionizes the way students plan their high school journey. It offers a multitude of features designed to simplify the course selection process:

A simplified course catalog, with a search bar and multiple filter options. The courses also contain badges which classifies what categories the course falls under. For example, AP Calculus BC would be classified as "Mathematics" and "AP", and so on.
A four year plan builder to align with your academic goals and extracurricular commitments. Students are allowed to choose eight classes per year, with four being core classes (English, Social Studies, Math, Science) and electives. Once the student plans their four years, they have the option to either send it to themselves for reference or to their counselor, determined by the first two initials of their last name. When sending to the counselor, the user can keep some additional notes or follow up questions that the counselor can respond to in the email.
The biggest highlight: an AI Chatbot just for course planning at Westwood High School. It is commonly accepted that counselors don't have all the time in their day to respond to student queries about courses. This is where our AI Chatbot comes into play! Within a second, the chatbot will come up with an answer to your course-related question and advise you on how to plan your courses as well.

How we built it

I built the Westwood High School Course Advisor using a combination of React, JavaScript, TailwindCSS, HTML, and CSS for the frontend. This tech stack allowed me to create a fast, responsive, and visually appealing user interface.

To fetch and process course data, I utilized webscraping techniques to extract information from the school's choice sheet. I then integrated Google Sheets to store and manage the extracted data efficiently.

The backbone of my project was the OpenAI API, which enables the AI assistant to understand and respond to user queries in a natural and informative way.

Westwood High School Choice Sheet

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was ensuring the accuracy and up-to-date nature of the course information. I overcame this by establishing a robust data pipeline and collaborating closely with school administrators to maintain data integrity.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The website is now officially used by the school! To Access the Website

The website is hyperlinked under the "Great 4yr planning tool".

I'm proud to have created a tool that not only saves students time but also empowers them to make informed decisions about their academic future. I believe that the Course Advisor will become an indispensable resource for Westwood High School students for years to come.

What we learned

Through the development of the Course Advisor, I learned the importance of user-centered design and the power of AI to solve real-world problems. I also gained valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities in the field of educational technology. Although the coding is the easy part, the most important part is student input. Without learning about students' struggles with course selection, I wouldn't have established a basis for creating the website.

What's next for Westwood High School Course Advisor

I am committed to continuously improving the Course Advisor and expanding its capabilities. Some of my future plans include:

Leveraging AI to provide personalized course recommendations based on students' interests and academic goals.
Expanding this to other schools in the district. By expanding to other schools, I aim to create a district-wide solution that empowers not only Westwood High School students, but all students to make informed decisions about their academic future.