CDA: Career Development Application

CDA - short for "Career Development Application" - is an iOS application that aims to help students who may not have inside connections on Wall Street break into the notoriously hard-to-enter investment banking industry. The application does this by asking the user a few questions about his or her characteristics, classifying him or her into different categories based on his or her response, then tailoring the information displayed to him or her based on his or her classifications. The information, compiled by my thesis partner, is stored in a cloud-based database system to facilitate easy content updates without having to recompile and resubmit the application to the App Store. Because the application shows information to its users based on certain characteristics of the users, such as grade level, previous experience in the industry, and the geographical region and prestigiousness of the school he or she attends, the application is more useful than simply showing the same information to every student regardless of his or her circumstances. While the current application presents useful information in a compact, easy-to-use format, there are still many improvements that could be made. The application could be more sensitive to minor mistakes made by the user trying to answer the classification questions, and it could present information in an even easier-to-use format. Still, the application as it stands could be extremely useful for helping students who are not the traditional "Wall Street types" to enter the competitive, prestigious investment banking industry.