Aggie Course Trader

This project was my Ungraduate Capstone project at Texas A&M University.

Abstract

No Texas A&M student gets the exact schedule that they want whenever they register for classes. A common problem students have during registration is getting into a specific class section. One way to solve this problem is for a student to “trade” class sections with someone else. This effectively looks like both students dropping the class that the other wants, then quickly signing up for the class that they want. This trading is mutually beneficial to both students involved, improving both of their schedules at once. Unfortunately, this trading rarely happens because to do so requires knowing somebody that has a class that you want and you have a class that they want, and both of you are willing to drop the class that the other wants. Our solution to this problem is to build an application that will facilitate course trading between TAMU students.

Solution

Our application matched students who wanted to exchange spots in the courses they were registered in. We authenticated students using their A&M email and then allowed them to list and browse "Swap requests". A Swap request contained the course a user was willing to drop and the course they wanted a spot in. Users with exactly opposite swap requests were matched together, so that they could trade spots.

Our solution focused on making it easy to create a swap request by

• Having a database of courses and sections offered by A&M, so that finding a course users wanted to add/drop was easy.
• Allowing users to list multiple courses they were willing to drop in exchange for a desired spot. This increased the likelihood of getting a “match”.

This solution helped solve the problem of students not being able to get into their desired courses by enabling them to make trades for courses that benefited each participating user. It did this by allowing users to create trades, match with each other, and then message each other, so they could exchange courses and get a seat in a preferred course or section.

_{Screenshots of our app designed using Material UI styling}