Helping You Settle, Connect, and Grow
PeerConnect is a web-based student support platform that connects newly arrived university students with senior "helper" students who can guide them through settling into a new city while providing a city guide covering accommodation, transportation, food, and local essentials.
Built for the Software Engineering Lab (CSE-3642), International Islamic University Chittagong.
A structured survey of university students across Bangladesh found:
- 63% struggled most with making friends/connections when they arrived in a new city.
- 56% struggled with understanding their new university environment.
- Only 25% had access to a senior student guide despite 69% wanting one.
- 100% of respondents were willing to help a newer student from their hometown.
- 88% wanted a built-in city guide as a feature.
- 100% expected to access the platform primarily from a phone.
PeerConnect exists to close that gap by pairing new students with senior "buddies" while giving everyone access to a shared, crowdsourced city guide.
- Authentication — Student signup/login with university and district information.
- Verified Profiles — Bio, interests, likes/dislikes, and verification badge.
- Community Feed — Post requests for help or offers to help, categorized by Housing, Transport, Study, Emergency, Campus, Food, and more.
- Likes, Comments & Saved Posts — Standard social interactions on posts.
- Peer Search & Discovery — Filter verified students by university, district, or role.
- Notifications — Alerts for likes and comments on posts.
- Helper Contribution Tracking — Posts resolved, help given, and contribution score.
- Admin Tools (partial) — Verification, moderation, and reporting.
- Frontend: React (Vite), CSS-in-JS styling,
lucide-react - Backend: Node.js, Express.js
- Database: MongoDB (Mongoose)
- Authentication: JWT
peerconnect/
├── client/ # React frontend
│ └── src/
│ ├── pages/ # Dashboard, ProfilePage, SettingsPage, ChatPage, PostingPage
│ ├── components/ # Homepage sections (Hero, FAQ, Team, Impact, etc.)
│ └── context/ # Theme context (Dark/Light mode)
└── server/ # Express backend
├── controllers/ # Business logic
├── models/ # Mongoose schemas
├── routes/ # REST API routes
└── middleware/ # JWT authentication middleware
The project was planned and developed across seven sprints.
| Sprint | Focus | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Requirements & Planning | Survey, requirements analysis, role definitions |
| 2 | Authentication & Data Models | JWT authentication, User & Post schemas |
| 3 | Landing Page & Onboarding | Homepage, signup, verification |
| 4 | Feed & Posting | Create/view posts, categorization, comments |
| 5 | Social Features | Likes, saves, search/filter, profile editing |
| 6 | Notifications & Engagement | Notifications, contribution tracking, helper matching |
| 7 | Polish & QA | Dashboard, settings, theme, bug fixes, deployment |
Not every planned feature was completed due to the time constraints of a semester-long Software Engineering Lab project.
- Chat/messaging is currently a UI mockup with dummy data (backend integration pending).
- Admin dashboard has backend support but limited frontend functionality.
- Only manual helper selection is implemented (automatic matching is future work).
- Notifications use polling instead of WebSockets.
- Some prototype and experimental files remain in the repository.
PeerConnect uses a split deployment architecture, with the frontend and backend deployed as independent services communicating over HTTPS.
| Layer | Platform | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Database | MongoDB Atlas | Cloud-hosted MongoDB cluster |
| Backend (Express API) | Render | Free-tier service (server/) |
| Frontend (React) | Vercel | Static hosting (client/) |
- Frontend: https://peerconnect-rho.vercel.app
- Backend API: https://peerconnect-api.onrender.com
Note: The backend is hosted on Render's free tier and may take 30–60 seconds to respond after periods of inactivity.
cd server
npm install
# Create a .env file with:
# MONGO_URI=<your_mongodb_connection_string>
# JWT_SECRET=<your_secret_key>
# PORT=5000
node server.jscd client
npm install
npm run dev- Asliraf Samaylan
- Nusrat Jahan
- Samiha Akter
Supervisor:
Md. Sadman Hafiz
Lecturer, Department of Computer Science & Engineering
International Islamic University Chittagong (IIUC)