Our team at Nelnet, the Campus Key team, utilizes Material Design patterns on all of our web applications. They're not that fun to synthesize on your own - so when I joined, I pitched that we move away from using Bootstrap to style our applications and instead implement the Material-UI component framework.

The implementation of the Material-UI framework solved a plethora problems our team faced immediately on Day 1. Gone were the days of having to custom build our components to match material design standards, and also the time spent searching npmjs.com for the more complicated components that we didn't want to custom build.

What else did I do?

My primary role on the Campus Key team is as a Front-End React.js Developer. My talented co-worker Eric Schladweiler designs all of our user interfaces, and then it goes to me for implementation. I've continued to learn new things within the Material-UI component library, dove deeper into React.js, familiarized myself with a few different APIs, and briefly worked with Amazon Web Services in my current role with Nelnet.

So what's the Cardholder Portal?

The Cardholder Portal is basically an administrative dashboard for our Campus Key application that will allow our Campus Key users to do things like requests funds from their "sponsors" (parents, mainly, or those that are helping them pay their way through college), pay off debts including meal and flex plan balances, and view previous transactions tied to their accounts.

It's one of the first steps in Campus Key's expansion into university markets around the country to create a one-stop shop for all of your university needs.

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