A project I’m currently working on in my spare time is a Python script/database/web app to help UQ students choose their subjects for the next semester.
This is the first in a series of blog posts almost in a diary format, so I can document the progression of the project and the challenges I faced. I’m intending these posts to be almost reflective in nature, rather than very technical, though I will lightly justify some technical choices also. Once I feel that I can move the project out of a prototype stage, I’ll put up a more formal page documenting the technology and some overall reflections.
Rationale
The idea stemmed from my own frustrations with choosing subjects for my Graduate Certificate in Information Technology. We have a list of courses (at UQ, a subject is a referred to as a “course”, I’ll use them interchangeably) we can choose from for a particular Program (qualification). This list of subjects unfortunately just divides the subjects into categories related to the program such as “Part A – Compulsory”, “Part B – Introductory Electives”. So when I was choosing my own subjects, I would just open up each course in the list in a new browser tab and then remove the subjects (close the browser tab) that are only offered in a different semester or that I don’t have the prerequisites for.