I’m finally done with my first major project and I couldn’t be happier. After weeks of reading, studying and coding along, this project has tested the skills I have been working to achieve. Honestly, when I first read the requirements, I had no idea where to begin or what I had gotten myself into. I didn’t want to pick a topic that had been done before, but I also didn’t want to pick a project that would be so difficult that even getting help would be impossible.
I created my project with one demographic in mind: parents searching for and applying to middle schools in New York City. My family recently went through the process, so I had a pretty good grasp of what I was looking for and what other parents might find interesting. After completing my program I also have a better idea of what I would like to see in a future program. Given how daunting this process could be in real life, I wanted to create something small and functional, and something that could grow as users become comfortable with the program.
For starters, I focused my initial search on public middle schools in my district - District 8 in the Bronx. I figured it was easier to work on a small piece that could be expanded as necessary. In order to get the information I needed, I knew I needed to scrape a website. I chose to scrape https://insideschools.org/search/results?grade_level=ms&borough=bronx&district=8&neighborhood=&button=, which only returned a manageable list of 22 schools in District 8 (a good starting point considering that a general search of schools in all of Bronx County produces a list of 166 middle schools). After finding all of my elements and testing the CLI to ensure all of my methods and calls were implemented properly, I had a working program that was able to generate the information I was looking for. It was really satisfying to see my program in action.
This project was very difficult, but I found myself enjoying it. Once I started, I went from feeling nervous and anxious to really having fun…I was even enjoying scraping, which is not my favorite thing to do! This project allowed me to explore my skills and knowledge. I still have a long way to go, but talk about a confidence booster.