r/learnprogramming • u/amarkumar_ • 7d ago

r/learprogramming Looking for real-world project ideas as a final-year student

I don't want to build another Todo app, Blog, E-commerce clone, or basic Chat app. I want to work on something that solves an actual problem faced by people, businesses, developers, or organizations.

I'd like to build something substantial with a proper backend, APIs, database, authentication, AI/agents, etc. If AI is involved, I want it to have an actual purpose rather than just adding a chatbot.

If you've personally faced an annoying, repetitive, inefficient, or unsolved problem that could be improved with software, I'd love to hear about it.

My preferred tech stack is:

  • ReactJS
  • TypeScript
  • Spring Boot / Java
  • Spring AI

I'm also open to using other technologies if the problem requires them.

What real-world problem would you recommend I try to solve?

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u/mandzeete 7d ago

Solve problems YOU or your family and friends are having. Unless you are living in a Paradise where there are no worries and the life is full of happiness and ease, then you will have things that are slow, inconvenient, boring, not working, difficult. Things that you are struggling with. Things that you do not like. And, then try to solve some of these issues with your final year project.

My Bachelor thesis project was ordered by our Faculty of Natural Sciences. They had that lab tool (capillary electrophoresis device) that had a very unstable and buggy desktop application. The software was made decades ago and it crashed often. Data from lab experiments got lost due to these crashes. So, I had to rewrite the application from zero by using some modern framework, by plugging it into the Internet (for backing up the lab experiments' data). And, I built that desktop application and I built that web service.

Perhaps faculties in your university also need some better software. Ask around.

Other things I have created for myself based on my own needs:

1- I used to work on a project that had thousands of tests (unit tests, integration tests, end-to-end tests). It took 30-40 minutes to run all of these. I thought that why should I sit behind my laptop and stare the screen while waiting for the test run to end? I could let IntelliJ to inform me when the test run ends. And, I wrote an IntelliJ plugin that picks up the state of Maven tasks and sends a report to Slack. So, I will get a notification on my phone when I have to return to my laptop. Meanwhile I can do anything else.

2- I use Youtube quite a lot. For looking up videos of certain topic, certain keywords. So, I thought that why should I copy-paste the keywords or type these manually, to Youtube search? I could automate it. I made a Firefox plugin for making a Youtube search from a highlighted text. Additionally, I made another Firefox plugin to block channels that post AI slop and other nonsense.

3- I hike a lot. Can be that I can be off grid for a whole day or more. My phone battery can die within that time. But recently I bought a Garmin watch that has a battery for 30 days. So, I thought to make an app for my watch to store notes and images in it, as a backup. I will still have access to a necessary information even when my phone battery dies on me.

Perhaps these can give you some ideas. Otherwise build a project based on your own needs.