UConnect

This is the capstone project developed by the CS410 Team Sapphire students at ODU from Spring 2024 to Fall 2024.

The Problem:

College students need experience, but internships and entry-level jobs often require the same type of experience that the student is searching for. Students are stuck with the catch-22 of finding out how to get experience in order to get experience.

Our Solution:

We've decided to develop UConnect- a web application designed to promote collaborative project development amongst college students, allowing them to reach out to each other to work on projects for experience that they can put on their resumes.

This will occur primarily through the use of tagged posts.

A user acting as a ‘Project Launcher’ can make a post describing the project they wish to launch, and then tag it with the skills or fields of study they’ll need expertise in. For example, a Launcher could tag their post with Business or Marketing. A user can also tag their post with information relating to the project- for example, a user could tag their post as “academic” if it’s part of a class they’re taking or part of research they’re doing with the school.

‘Project Seekers’ can browse these posts to find projects they wish to join. Through these posts, a Project Seeker can send a message to the Launcher who posted the project idea.

Users are not limited to remaining a Project Launcher or a Project Seeker for life- sometimes, a user might have their own idea, while other times, they may be more interested in someone else’s idea. All users can browse student profiles and check the skills listed on a profile, read reviews, and see whether or not a user is open for project invites or not.

UConnect is a student platform purchased by college administrators; the ability to access the service should act as one of the many benefits that attending a good university entails. The use of UConnect amongst colleges will strengthen the community and networking aspect of college, and should be particularly useful for students who attend school virtually and don't get to collaborate with peers often on an in-person level.

Major Terms:

• "Project Launcher"- any user who has a project idea that they wish to share on UConnect
• "Project Seeker"- a user who is looking for a project that they can work on in order to develop and apply skills needed for their desired career path

Expected Functionality:

• You can expect to be able to write a post about a project and tag it with relevant information, such as "academic", "game development", "AutoCAD".
• You can browse posts via tag, or just by normal search.
• You can view user profiles and read reviews left by other users.

Unexpected Functionality:

• UConnect is not a student job board. That's Handshake's job.
• UConnect will not do the work for you. You must search through posts and profiles and take the initiative to reach out to other students. It is your responsibility to advertise your post clearly and with accurate tags.

So How do I Use It?

You can't. It hasn't been built yet. Starting Page