Devlog #04
Hello everyone(˶ᵔᗜᵔ˶)ﾉﾞ,
Hope you’re all doing great!
Welcome to Devlog #04 of ScholarAtlas! In this devlog, I’ll be sharing some of the recent progress I’ve made on the website.
Okay… a LOT happened this time. (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ
The Profile Actually Works Now
Remember how the “Save Profile” button was basically just sitting there looking important? (￣▽￣;)
Well… it actually works now!
The profile information is saved, which means ScholarAtlas can now use the information students enter instead of treating it like a temporary form.
And that brings us to the biggest update…
The Matching System Is ALIVE
I started building the Scholarship Matching Engine!
The basic idea is:
Student Profile
↓
Matching Engine
↓
Compare with scholarships
↓
Calculate Match Score
↓
Rank scholarships
For now, the system looks at things like:

Study level

Field of study

Country

International availability

It then calculates a match score out of 100.
So instead of students having to manually check every scholarship, ScholarAtlas can start identifying which ones are more relevant to them.
Scholarships Are Now Ranked
The matching score isn’t just displayed on the cards either.
Scholarships are now automatically sorted from the highest match to the lowest match.
For example:
MEXT Scholarship 90%
Erasmus Mundus 80%
DAAD Scholarship 60%
Chevening Scholarship 40%
The 90% match will appear first.
This makes the scholarship page much more useful because students can immediately see the opportunities that are most relevant to them.
Why Is It A Match?
I also wanted to make the matching system more transparent.
Instead of simply showing:

90% Match

ScholarAtlas can now explain why the scholarship received that score.
For example:

✓ Your study level matches
✓ Your field is eligible
✓ Open to international applicants

It can also show warnings when something needs to be checked:

⚠ This scholarship is for Master’s students

I think this is important because I don’t want the match score to just look like a random number.
Search & Filters
I’ve also started working on the scholarship search and filtering system.
The filter section will allow students to search by things such as:

Scholarship name

Provider

Country

Degree level

Funding

Field of study

The interface has been created, but I still need to connect the filters to the actual scholarship data.
What’s Next?
The next step is to make the search and filters actually work.
After that, I’ll continue improving the scholarship system and eventually replace the tiny prototype dataset with a much larger collection of real, verified scholarship information.
The bigger goal is:
Student creates profile
↓
ScholarAtlas understands their needs
↓
Student searches scholarships
↓
ScholarAtlas calculates compatibility
↓
Best matches appear first
We’re slowly turning ScholarAtlas from a simple scholarship directory into an actual personalized scholarship-finding tool.
That’s all for this devlog!
Thank you all so much for reading, and have a nice day! =)

Devlog #03
Hello everyone(˶ᵔᗜᵔ˶)ﾉﾞ,
Hope you all are doing great.
Welcome to Devlog #03 of ScholarAtlas.
In this devlog I will be sharing some of the recent progress I made on the website.
Okay… lemme explain. (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ

Scholarship Pages Are Finally Working
Soooo…
The scholarship section is actually becoming functional now.
Instead of having everything displayed on one page, scholarships now have their own individual pages.
You can browse the scholarships, click on “View Scholarship”, and get a dedicated page containing information about that scholarship.
This might sound like a small thing, but it is actually pretty important for the structure of the website.
It means we can eventually add much more information to each scholarship without making the main scholarship page ridiculously long. (￣▽￣)

Scholarship Details
I also added more information to the individual scholarship pages.
You can now see things like:
Country
Degree
Funding
Field of Study
Application Deadline
Provider
And now we also have an eligibility section.
The eligibility section currently includes things like GPA requirements, nationality, study level, and work experience.
For now, the data is still prototype data because I haven’t connected the website to a proper verified scholarship database yet.
That will come later.

Student Profiles
This is probably the biggest thing I worked on this time.
ScholarAtlas can now ask users what type of student they are.
You can choose between:
High School Student
Bachelor’s Student
Master’s Student
PhD Student
And depending on what you choose, you get a different academic profile form.
I didn’t want to make one giant form where everyone has to enter the same information.
Because realistically, a high school student and a Master’s student don’t have the same academic information.
For example, high school students don’t necessarily have a university GPA, so asking them for one would be kinda pointless. (╹ڡ╹ )

Different Forms For Different Students
The profile system now changes depending on the student’s education level.
High school students can enter things like their curriculum, country, graduation year, intended degree and intended major.
Bachelor’s students can enter their university, major, GPA and expected graduation year.
Master’s students can enter their Bachelor’s university, previous field, GPA, intended Master’s field, graduation year and country.
And PhD students now have their own section as well.

This is going to be really important later because ScholarAtlas will eventually use this information to find scholarships that actually match the student.

What’s Next?
Right now, the profile form looks good, but there is one tiny problem…
The “Save Profile” button doesn’t actually save anything yet. (・–・;)ゞ
It’s basically just sitting there looking important.
So the next step is to make the profile data actually work.
After that, I want to start working on the scholarship matching system.
The goal is basically:
Student enters their information
↓
ScholarAtlas checks the scholarship requirements
↓
ScholarAtlas finds matching scholarships
↓
Student gets personalized recommendations
That’s where I think ScholarAtlas will start becoming more than just a scholarship directory.
Anyway, that’s all for this devlog.
We’re slowly getting there.
Thank you all so much for reading.
Have a nice day =)

Devlog #02

Hello everyone(˶ᵔᗜᵔ˶)ﾉﾞ，

I hope everyone is doing well.

Welcome to the second devlog of ScholarAtlas.

In today’s devlog, I will be sharing some of the updates that have been made in the website recently.

Okay… allow me to explain. (๑˃ᴗ˂)

The Website Is Finally Working!

Thus far, I’ve only been designing the structure/UI of ScholarAtlas.

But now that’s changing – things are finally coming together! (≧▽≦)

I’m currently creating the scholarship browsing functionality which includes scholarship cards, search and filters.

Scholarship Database

I designed the very first data file of Scholarships for ScholarAtlas.

For now, the following example scholarships were added: Chevening, MEXT, DAAD, and Erasmus Mundus.

Each scholarship has the following data fields:

Country, Degree Level, Funding Type, Deadline, Field of Study and Provider.

Clearly, there’s still a lot of work to be done in terms of the database.

But the primary task now is to create a functional system rather than filling up the database with loads of information.

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Scholarship Search & Filters

Also, I implemented search and filtering functionality on the scholarships page.

Now, you can filter scholarships by:

Name

Country

Degree

Funding

Filters can also be combined to narrow the search rather than having to scroll the entire huge list.

Actually, that could be considered one of the most essential parts of ScholarAtlas.

The whole idea is to allow people to easily locate those scholarships which match their needs without having to look for hundreds of random web sites.

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Separate Scholarship Page

There is one thing that occurred to me when working on the site - all the content was actually placed on the main page.

Navigation buttons were there, however, when clicked, led to the top of the page. (╥﹏╥)

Well, the reason turned out to be very simple.

All the links were utilizing href=”#” attribute.

Thus, I implemented new navigation system and routes.

Now ScholarAtlas consists of:

Home

Scholarships

Universities

Resources

Scholarships page is already functioning while the other pages will be created soon.

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Navigation Update

I’ve also updated the navigation links to use Next.js routing.

What this means is that when you click a link now, you’re actually going to another route and not just moving around on the home page.

It’s a small update, but it gives the entire site a very “application-y” feeling.

(And yes, I may have spent way too long figuring out why my clicks were doing nothing… (￣▽￣))

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Upcoming Features

There is definitely a lot more to be done yet.

There is a lot more scholarships in the database needed to be added, and the Universities and Resources sections have not been developed yet either.

However, I am working towards making the scholarship search smart and able to match your eligibility criteria in terms of your academic profile, degree/major, country, etc.

But for now, I will work on creating the foundations for the site.

Little by little, ScholarAtlas is shaping into an actual scholarship platform rather than just some UI elements.

Thank you all for reading!

Have a nice day =)

Devlog #01

Hello everyone! (˶ᵔᗜᵔ˶)ﾉﾞ

Hope you’re all doing well.

Welcome to the very first devlog of ScholarAtlas!

This week was mostly about building the foundation of the project before jumping into all the exciting features. There wasn’t anything flashy yet, but a lot happened behind the scenes.

So… let’s get into it. (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ

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ScholarAtlas officially begins!

The project is now up and running using Next.js, React, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS.

I also spent some time organizing everything into separate folders instead of throwing all the code into one place. It doesn’t sound very exciting, but it’ll make adding new features much easier later on. ( •̀ᴗ•́ )و

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Landing Page

The homepage has finally started taking shape!

So far I’ve finished:

• Hero Section
• Stats Section
• How It Works
• Features Section

Instead of trying to make it look fancy immediately, I’m focusing on making everything clean and easy to understand first.

I’ll worry about making it prettier once the core functionality is there. (ᵔᵕᵔ)

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How It Works

Originally I wanted to make a very simple “Step 1 → Step 2 → Step 3” section…

But then I realized different students have different needs.

For now ScholarAtlas will mainly focus on undergraduate, master’s and PhD applicants.

High school students will definitely be supported too, but that requires a slightly different application flow since many scholarships don’t ask for GPAs yet.

So that’s something I’ll work on later. (•̀ᴗ•́)و

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Design Direction

I also spent some time deciding how I actually want ScholarAtlas to look.

Rather than using lots of gradients and bright colors, I’m aiming for something clean and modern.

Think websites like Stripe, Notion or Vercel.

Simple.

Professional.

Easy to use.

Hopefully it’ll make finding scholarships feel less overwhelming.

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The Biggest Challenge…

Ironically…

The hardest part this week wasn’t coding.

It was getting Hackatime to work. (╥﹏╥)

Since I’m developing inside GitHub Codespaces, it kept refusing to authenticate and none of my coding time was being tracked.

I spent way longer than I expected debugging it.

Deleting configs…

Reconnecting extensions…

Checking logs…

Restarting VS Code…

Basically everything. (￣▽￣;)

Thankfully it’s finally working now!

So every minute I code on ScholarAtlas is finally being tracked correctly.

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What’s Next?

Now that the foundation is finished, I can finally start building the fun stuff.

Next on my list is:

• Scholarship Search Preview
• Popular Scholarships section
• Testimonials
• FAQ
• Call-to-Action section

After that, I’ll start working on the actual scholarship database and eventually the AI recommendation system.

Still a long way to go…

But seeing the homepage slowly come together is really motivating. (≧▽≦)

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Thank you so much for reading!

I’ll be back with another update once there’s more progress to share.

Have a wonderful day! (´▽`)