StudyMatePlus

Live demo: https://studymateplus.vercel.app

StudyMatePlus is a student-focused academic resource platform built to help learners find everything they need for exam preparation in one place. It brings together syllabus material, previous year question papers, feedback from other students, analytics, and community-driven study tools in a clean React experience backed by a Node.js API.

Overview

Students often spend too much time searching across multiple websites, folders, and group chats for reliable academic material. StudyMatePlus reduces that friction by organizing study resources around the way students actually prepare for exams.

The platform currently focuses on:

• Syllabus browsing by university, department, and semester
• Previous year question papers with downloadable reports
• Student exam feedback and difficulty insights
• Notes, study resources, and contribution workflows
• Authenticated pages for a more personalized experience
• Supporting pages such as FAQ, privacy, about, contact, profile, and analytics

Key features

• Responsive landing page with clear navigation into study resources
• Protected routes for authenticated users
• Syllabus and PYQ browsing experiences tailored for academic planning
• Feedback collection to capture exam difficulty, important topics, and preparation tips
• Analytics views for understanding resource trends
• Mind map, tasks, profile, and contribution sections for student productivity
• Light/dark theme support in the client UI

Tech stack

Frontend

• React 19
• React Router
• Framer Motion
• Chart.js / react-chartjs-2
• React Icons
• Axios

Backend

• Node.js
• Express
• MongoDB with Mongoose
• JWT authentication
• Helmet and rate limiting for basic hardening
• Multer for file uploads
• PDF generation utilities

Repository structure

StudyMatePlus/
├── client/            # React frontend
├── server/            # Express / MongoDB backend
├── tools/             # Utility scripts
├── README.md
├── CONTRIBUTING.md
├── CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
└── LICENSE

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18 or newer
• npm 9 or newer
• MongoDB connection string

Local setup

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/StudyMatePlus.git
cd StudyMatePlus

2. Install dependencies

Install backend and frontend dependencies separately:

cd server
npm install

cd ..\client
npm install

3. Configure environment variables

Create a .env file in server/ and add the required values.

Recommended variables:

PORT=5000
MONGO_URI=your-mongodb-connection-string
JWT_SECRET=your-strong-jwt-secret
CLIENT_URL=http://localhost:3000
OPENAI_API_KEY=optional-if-you-use-ai-features

If your frontend needs to point at a deployed backend or a different local API, set the client API URL as well:

REACT_APP_API_URL=http://localhost:5000

4. Run the application

Start the backend and frontend in separate terminals:

# Terminal 1
cd server
npm run dev

# Terminal 2
cd client
npm start

The frontend usually runs on http://localhost:3000, and the backend API runs on http://localhost:5000.

Available scripts

Server

• npm run dev — start the backend with Nodemon
• npm start — start the backend in production mode

Client

• npm start — run the React development server
• npm run build — build the frontend for production
• npm test — run the React test suite

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. A good workflow is:

1. Read the CONTRIBUTING.md guide.
2. Check the Issues tab for an open task.
3. Create a branch for your work.
4. Make your changes and verify them locally.
5. Open a pull request with a clear summary of what changed.

Please follow the Code of Conduct in all contributions and discussions.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Contact

For questions, suggestions, or collaboration ideas, please use the repository issues/discussions or connect through the project maintainer’s linked channels.

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Built to make academic preparation a little less chaotic and a lot more organized.