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selecting-your-project.md

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Selecting Your Project

This is your chance to come up with pie-in-the-sky ideas including overly-ambitious projects. After you come up with your list, you'll pare it down, and likely simplify the goals to make it more approachable.

Inspiration

  • Reflect on your day-to-day: where do you see an opportunity for an optimization or an improvement? What do you think about a lot? Public transportation, determining whether to bike or walk to work, a small tool that can help with a task, or even a current application you use.
  • Consider whether to make a feature into a standalone project. Look at some of your favorite apps, sites, or products. Can you re-purpose and improve upon one of its features?
  • Is there a dataset you would love to dive into and is it available to you? Think tweets, Yelp reviews, other apps—lots of these have APIs. If available, sign up for access to the information to take a closer look. Don't be afraid to ask for access. If data is too hard to access or not easy to make dummy datasets for, it may not be a good choice.
  • Break down some well-known apps/companies (Airbnb, Facebook, etc.) into their MVPs.
  • Look at some example projects:

Process

  • Group brainstorming: do a group brainstorming session to get ideas flowing and come up with a list of at least 20-40 potential ideas.  
  • Individual elevator pitches: do a round of 1-minute pitches for your favorite ideas (everyone pitches at least one idea, but pitching does not commit you to doing that project!).
  • Mentor meeting: for 2-3 of your favorite ideas, present your mentor with the data and features needed and discuss which project might be best for you.

Considerations

It's important to select a project that is feasible. Ask:

  • Can I build my main features in just two weeks? 
  • Can I get the information I need? 
  • Does this project demonstrate the right skills? 
  • Will I learn/solidify the required concepts? 

Choose a project that gives you something to talk about during your job search! Don't worry about if it's been done before or how practical it is—will you be excited to explore and learn through your project?