Gig: Automated Academic Calendar Calculation Engine
UNC Charlotte Gig Training Program
Campus Internship
Closes on Wednesday, November 18, 2026
Job Description
The Office of the Registrar maintains and safeguards the integrity, accuracy, and privacy of the official academic records for all students. In addition, we ensure compliance with all federal, state, and University regulations and policies. By working as a cohesive team within the Office and the Division of Enrollment Management, we strive to provide the highest level of service to all constituencies, both within and outside the University.
The Project
The Automated Academic Calendar Calculation Engine aims to streamline, standardize, and automate the academic calendar generation process for Charlotte. Creating institutional calendars requires strict adherence to institutional parameters, such as semester length, credit hour requirements, holiday schedules (e.g., Labor Day, Fall Break, Spring Break), drop/add windows, and final exams.
Currently, establishing these critical dates often involves manual calculations and spreadsheets prone to human error. This project will deliver a software program that interfaces with available university tools and infrastructure to automatically compute and map all required academic dates, for each part-of-term, given a baseline semester start date.
Learning Experience
This project will strengthen the student's ability to use business logic and requirements engineering. Academic calendar calculation is driven strictly by policy constraints and business rules. Translating rigid administrative guidelines into executable code teaches the student how to navigate complex real-world requirements—a vital skill for software engineers and enterprise solutions developers.
Outcomes
1. Automate Key Date Computations: Develop a script/application using standard university software environments (such as Python integrated with Google Sheets via API or Google Apps Script for example) to calculate downstream dates (e.g., Census Date, Midterm Grades Due, Final Exams, and Commencement) automatically based on standard UNC Charlotte rules.
2. Integrate Institutional Rules & Constraints: Code rules into the system (e.g., dynamic holiday offsets, minimum instructional day thresholds, and weekend exclusions) to eliminate calculation drift and policy violations.
3. Export and System Compatibility: Output the calculated schedule into standard format structures (e.g. Excel) for seamless administrative review and publishing.
4. Validation and Error Checking: Implement logic alerts to flag edge cases, such as insufficient instructional days due to unaligned holidays, planned events or conflicting university closures.
UNC Charlotte Gig Training Program