UofTCompass

Inspiration

The University of Toronto offers hundreds of support services, ranging from academic advising and tutoring to mental health support, financial aid, and career development. However, these resources are scattered across many different websites, portals, and departments. For many students, especially first-year students, it can be overwhelming to even know where to start or what resources exist. Being first years ourselves it was very difficult to navigate all the resources available. We wanted to build a platform that simplifies this experience. Instead of students having to search through dozens of pages, UofTCompass asks students a few questions about what they’re experiencing and then directs them to the most relevant resources in one centralized place. Our goal was to make finding help at UofT as simple and accessible as possible.

What it does

UofTCompass is an AI-powered platform that helps University of Toronto students quickly discover the support resources they need. The platform begins with a login or signup page for UofT students. After logging in, students complete a short questionnaire about their faculty, academic situation, current challenges, and goals. Based on their responses, the system generates a personalized dashboard that recommends relevant campus resources such as:

Academic advising
Tutoring and study support
Career development and internships
Financial aid and scholarships
Mental health services
Accessibility services
Campus clubs and student life Each recommendation includes direct links to official UofT services, making it easy for students to access help immediately. The AI-driven recommendations help ensure students are guided to the most relevant support systems based on their needs.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was organizing the large number of university services into a structure that felt intuitive and helpful for students.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of creating a full end-to-end prototype that demonstrates how students could realistically interact with the system.

Some accomplishments include:

Designing a complete user flow from login to personalized dashboard
Building a dynamic recommendation system based on student inputs
Creating a visually polished interface that resembles a real campus support platform
Integrating official UofT resources directly into the dashboard

Most importantly, the project addresses a real problem that many students experience when trying to navigate university support systems.

What we learned

Through building UofTCompass, I learned more about:

Designing user-centered interfaces for student support tools
Organizing complex information systems into intuitive dashboards
Thinking about how AI-style recommendation systems can personalize user experiences I also learned how important accessibility and clarity are when designing tools intended to help students who may already be overwhelmed.