StuSource

Website Layout on Figma

Inspiration

Based on our own experiences attending career fairs and looking for internships, we know how difficult and demoralizing the search can be. Students regularly pour time and effort into applying for positions so many other qualified individuals are competing for. We wanted to find a way to allow students to work with companies and mentors on a smaller, less demanding scale -- allowing them to build their skills, confidence, and network at a level that matches their interests and experience.

What It Does

StuSource offers three main services: contracting, meeting, and shadowing.

Contracting

Companies can outsource simple, non-time-sensitive tasks, such as redesigning the company website, to students. Students would be able to gain experience working on projects with a team of other students and guidance from professional mentors.

Meeting

Companies can open up their meetings for a few pre-approved university students to observe. Businesses would be able to use this feature to promote themselves, and students would be able to see how companies plan and operate in the long run, as well as learn about company projects and workflow.

Shadowing

Companies can assign students a one-on-one mentor to shadow at work for a day. Students would be able to learn what a specific job entails and what an average workday is like. Additionally, students and mentors would be able to form strong one-on-one connections for the future.

How We Built It

We split into two main teams when developing StuSource: design and programming. The design team used Figma to draw up the layout for the website and worked on the slides. The programming team used HTML, CSS, and heroku to code and implement the website.

Challenges We Ran Into

One of the biggest obstacles we encountered was that the design team made the website layout too complicated and ambitious. As you can see with the homepage, the original idea had a lot of layered objects and colors. However, as our team had limited experience with front-end development, we were unable to match that design. We ended up adapting as best as we could and made later parts of the website simpler.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

Our greatest accomplishment was that we were able to host the StuSource application on the web instead of locally. We were also proud of the fact that despite our limited front-end experience, we were able to make a decent-looking and navigable website with concise HTML and CSS.

What We Learned

The main lesson we learned is that the problem is often simpler than it initially seems. Both our website design and implementation were initially more complicated than they needed to be. However, using simple shapes and code, we were able to create a relatively successful website. We also often found easier ways to accomplish seemingly-difficult tasks, such as creating working buttons without using pagination.

We also developed more practical skills. The design team learned how to use Figma, including some of its more advanced features. The programming teams got more familiar with Git push/pull requests and style sheets. The front-end developers also successfully formatted a navigation bar and strung together pages.

What's Next For StuSource

Some features we would like to add in the future are:

Make the pages dynamic and interactable.
User accounts for both students and companies/mentors, which would save their answers to some of the questions listed on each form, such as location.
Refined searches with more specialized questions, which would allow the students to make more detailed searches.
Chat functionality, which would allow students and mentors, especially those working on contracting projects, to pop quick questions and follow progress.
Company interface (as currently, we’ve only implemented the student interface). Companies would be to: post and edit opportunities in each of the three categories, review student profiles and resumes for pre-approval, keep track of the students whom they’ve approved for events, set a password or portal so only authorized users can access virtual events, stay in contact with students whom they're interested in offering future opportunities.
Implement video “tours”/shadows so students can still explore/shadow without being hindered by location/time barriers or having to directly pair one-on-one.