Student Debt Calculator

Inspiration

Knowing that students have many financial constraints, ranging from school tuition to textbooks, we knew we wanted to create a Finance related project. We settled on a student debt calculator to aid students that struggle with budgeting and paying off their student debt.

What it does

The student debt calculator will reveal how many months it would take for the user to pay off their student debt. The user is required to input their total student debt, monthly income and their monthly expenses on various topics. It’s more realistic for our calculator to consider other financial factors, since the user’s income is not solely used to pay off debt. The user has the option to manually type in five topics and their correlating monthly expenses, but the topics are not a required field.

How we built it

First, we used Figma to create a mockup design. After, we built our website using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in Code Sandbox then transferred it over to Visual Studio Code. We were able to host our website through GitHub.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge we faced was a skill barrier. As we were unfamiliar with Javascript, it was difficult to code the functionality portion of our calculator. Although we had some prior experience creating websites with HTML and CSS, this time, we had to take into account user input and a calculate button. We also had some issues when it came to desktop sizing, but ultimately decided to tailor the website to a Macbook.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

An accomplishment we're proud of is creating a functional website with limited time. Another accomplishment is that we had perfect communication and strengthened our friendship. As our second hackathon, we were able to focus on a new track and create an original project.

What we learned

With the help of our mentors and the internet, we were able to learn more about the front and back end of building a website. We were able to pick up JavaScript and also learn how to make our website more interactive. We learned the most when we wrote and debugged code through trial and error.

What's next for Student Debt Calculator

After Hydrangea Hacks, we hope to continue expanding our knowledge in the technology field, join more hackathons, and create more projects. We look forward to learning more about coding languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python, as well!