A no-budget virtual assistant

The challenge

The international student office had a lot of information, but students had no easy way to find it, and they often did not know what they were looking for. Then COVID brought an unprecedented surge in emails, advising requests, and processing needs, with constant change. A small team could not answer every question one by one.

What I did

• Designed and built a rule-based assistant (not generative AI) that answers common advising questions through scripted conversations, working like a decision tree so students can find answers even when they do not know what to ask.
• Pointed students to the official source for each answer instead of copying information into the tool, so there was one source of truth to keep updated, not the same information maintained in several places.
• Led the project as the only full-time staff member, with a small part-time temporary project team and no budget.
• Worked in short build-and-review cycles with the project team, then relaunched and expanded it after I became a senior advisor.

The result

What I took from it

Having information is not the same as people being able to find it. Students often do not know what to ask, so guiding them through a few simple choices works better than handing them everything at once. Linking to the source, instead of copying it, leaves one place to keep current, which keeps a tool sustainable. And you can build all of this with no budget if you start with the questions people ask most.