Hey everyone — I’m a final-year student, and I’ve been wondering this a lot lately. We always hear that “you need a good project to land a job”, but most students I know either copy from GitHub, get stuck, or just… give up. We’re doing a small open survey to understand this from both sides — students and educators. If you’ve ever: Built or struggled with a final-year project
Helped someone else do it (educator/mentor)
Wanted to sell or learn from real-world projects
We’d love to hear your honest experience. 🙏 It’s just 2–3 mins, totally anonymous. 📄 Survey Link – for students & educators
We’ll be using the insights to create open resources and maybe a system that actually helps. Thanks in advance if you participate — or drop a comment about your experience.
The reality is most students are trying to simply submit a project the teacher will accept and grade well while not killing themselves doing it since they have other classes they have to pass.
If you want to change this, the entire post-secondary system would have to change.
Usually it’s money. Students are typically not very wealthy.
I would have built SO much stuff back then if I only had the resources.
Second this, it was the largest blocker, but also time, with other classes and the cadence of the school year, that didn’t align well with the real world timeframes.
Absolutely agree — time is such an underrated blocker. We’re expected to juggle 4–5 subjects, labs, assignments, exams… and somehow still build a “real-world” project with full documentation and deployment. It’s no surprise most of us feel like we’re behind. That point about school timelines not aligning with real-world cycles really hits — no one talks about that. Appreciate you sharing this 🙏 Out of curiosity, did you ever manage to finish something after the semester ended, once you had more breathing room?
Totally get that — I feel the same sometimes. Even simple things like buying a domain, hosting, or a premium API can feel like a luxury when you’re living on pocket money 💸 We’re also realizing that it’s not just motivation — access and affordability really affect how far someone can go with a project. Out of curiosity — was there anything specific you really wanted to build back then but couldn’t because of the cost?
More than I can list. I’m at a point in my life where I can afford to start and complete these types of projects now, so I’m enjoying that freedom.
These days, I often re-engineer everyday items into better versions of themselves. It’s nice to have something that’s customized for you, or better than you can buy anywhere.
Just to add — this survey is for literally anyone who’s been through the project phase in college.
We’re trying to figure out:
What stops students from building cool stuff?
What actually helps students finish a project?
How mentors/teachers can support better?
And whether buying/selling projects is something people genuinely do — and why.
Super grateful to anyone who fills it. And if you’ve had an experience (good or bad) with your project — feel free to share it here too 🙌
