Signature Project
PanLove
Social Media Platform for the GCSU Panhellenic Community
A full-stack social media platform designed to give members of GCSU's Panhellenic community one place to connect, share content, view announcements, and participate in events.
Project Overview
Building a Community Platform
PanLove is a full-stack social media platform developed by a three-person team for Georgia College & State University's Panhellenic community. The goal was to create a centralized, user-friendly space where sorority members could connect, share posts, interact with one another, view announcements, and participate in events.
The application was built using HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, SQL, and MySQL. Its features include account registration and login, editable user profiles, a social feed with text and image posts, likes and comments, event creation and RSVPs, executive announcements, and chapter-specific member information.
Ava's primary responsibility was developing the main social feed. She worked on functionality that allowed users to create posts, upload images, interact with posts through likes and comments, and view updated content dynamically. AJAX, fetch requests, JSON responses, and DOM manipulation were used to communicate with PHP files and update the interface without requiring full page reloads.
Ava also collaborated with her teammates on the website's visual design, database development, and overall functionality. The project strengthened her experience with full-stack web development, database integration, collaborative programming, and debugging a multi-file application.
The Problem
The Panhellenic community needed a centralized platform where members could communicate, share content, access announcements, and interact with events and other members online.
My Role
My primary responsibility was developing the main social feed, including post creation, image uploads, likes, comments, and dynamic content updates. I also collaborated on the site's design, functionality planning, and database development.
Technical Stack
Technologies Used
What We Built
Key Features
User Accounts
Registration, login, editable profiles, password updates, and profile pictures.
Social Feed
Users can create text and image posts and interact through likes and comments.
Events & RSVPs
Members can view and create events and RSVP directly through the platform.
Announcements
Members can view important updates while executive users can create announcements.
Chapter Directory
Users can view member information specific to their own sorority chapter.
Database Integration
User accounts, posts, comments, likes, events, and RSVPs are stored in MySQL.
My Contribution
Developing the Social Feed
✦ Created functionality for user posts
✦ Added optional image uploads and previews
✦ Implemented likes and comments
✦ Used AJAX and fetch for dynamic updates
✦ Updated the DOM without full page reloads
✦ Collaborated on CSS and overall visual design
✦ Contributed to database development
From Idea to Application
Concept to Final Product
The project began with visual mockups that helped our team establish the style and layout before development began.
Initial Canva design concept
Final implemented version
Project Gallery
Inside PanLove
Problem Solving
Challenges & Lessons Learned
Collaborative Development
Working across different computers created challenges when keeping local databases and project files synchronized. The team also worked through issues connecting GitHub with VS Code.
Managing a Larger Codebase
As the application grew, keeping track of a large number of PHP, JavaScript, CSS, and database-related files became more challenging and emphasized the importance of organization.
Debugging
One unresolved issue involved timestamps displaying several hours ahead of the expected time. The team investigated the issue and believed it was connected to the database environment.
Looking Forward
Career Connection
PanLove directly relates to my goal of pursuing a career in software development because it gave me experience working through the full process of building an application for real users. The project strengthened my skills in front-end development, server-side programming, databases, teamwork, debugging, and integrating multiple features into one system. These are skills I hope to continue developing in a professional software development role.