Smart Pathfinder: An AI-Integrated Academic Advising Platform for Personalized Course Recommendation and Career Guidance

Abstract

Modern higher education environments face significant challenges in student retention and academic progression due to the increasing complexity of specialized curricula. In the Philippine context, academic advising is traditionally a manual and reactive process, often leading to "choice paralysis" among students and delayed graduation. This study addresses these systemic inefficiencies by developing Smart Pathfinder, an AI-integrated platform designed to transition advising from a clerical task to a data-driven strategic intervention. The primary objective of this research was to engineer a proactive system capable of providing personalized course recommendations based on prerequisite logic, implementing real-time predictive risk analysis to identify at-risk students, and offering industry-aligned career guidance. The methodology followed a developmental research design integrated with an Agile Software Development Life Cycle, allowing for iterative refinement of the system’s core algorithms. The platform was built using a Python-based backend for machine learning logic and a MySQL database for secure student record management. System validation was conducted through rigorous functional testing and data accuracy verification across three core modules: Course Recommendation, Risk Analytics, and Career Mapping. Key results demonstrate that the system achieved 100% accuracy in prerequisite validation and successfully categorized students into high, moderate, and low-risk levels based on GPA fluctuations and historical performance trends. By visualizing academic health through institutional analytics dashboards, the system allows advisors to intervene as early as the fourth week of a semester. The study concludes that the integration of Artificial Intelligence into student support services significantly enhances institutional efficiency and reduces the administrative burden on faculty. Smart Pathfinder effectively bridges the gap between academic compliance and professional readiness, offering a scalable model for modernizing academic advising in Philippine Higher Education Institutions.