One of the most transformative experiences I have had so far in my journey as a software engineering student has been working on Books&Co, a full-stack application that merges movies and books into a single platform. The app allows users to search for titles, save favorites, and keep track of their history—all powered by real-world APIs. On the surface, it looks like a simple search-and-save tool. But under the hood, it became a crash course in API integration, user authentication, and the complexities of full-stack development.
When I started this project, I thought I understood APIs. I had read about them, practiced with smaller data pulls, and worked with simple fetch requests. But as soon as I began integrating the Google Books API and TMDb API (The Movie Database), I realized the difference between theory and practice. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about pulling data— it was about handling errors gracefully, structuring results in user-friendly ways, and making sure the app stayed responsive even when external services were slow.
One of my earliest challenges was dealing with rate limits. APIs are not infinite fountains of data—they come with restrictions. Early in development, I hit request limits that forced me to rethink how often my app called the API. The solution was learning to cache results and minimize unnecessary requests. It wasn’t just a technical problem; it was a lesson in efficiency and thinking about the user experience. Why make a call every time if I can store results locally for a few minutes?
Another big lesson was data consistency. Movies and books don’t always share the same metadata structures. A book might have multiple authors, while a movie has cast and crew. Some results returned missing fields, like descriptions or images. At first, this broke parts of my front end. But over time, I learned to anticipate incomplete data and design fallback systems— like default images, placeholder text, or conditional rendering. This forced me to think not just like a coder but like a product designer, considering what users would actually see when things weren’t perfect.
The authentication system, powered by Passport.js, introduced a whole new dimension. It wasn’t enough to just let users search; they had to log in to save favorites and build a profile. Setting up secure authentication meant dealing with hashed passwords, sessions, and redirection flows. There were countless debugging moments where logging in didn’t redirect properly or sessions expired too quickly. Through this, I learned that security and usability have to work hand in hand. An app that isn’t secure is risky, but an app that is secure yet frustrating to use won’t retain users either.
Beyond the technical skills, Books&Co taught me the value of teamwork and project management. My Drexel group used Agile practices, daily stand-ups, and Git collaboration. Coordinating merges, resolving conflicts, and splitting tasks across backend and frontend gave me a taste of real-world software engineering. It was less about “who can write the best function” and more about “how do we make all these parts fit together harmoniously.”
Looking back, Books&Co was more than a project. It was a learning lab. It taught me how APIs shape user experiences, how to design for failure instead of perfection, and how collaboration turns ideas into working systems. Most importantly, it gave me confidence—confidence that I can take a vague concept, break it down into parts, and build something that people can actually use.
As I continue my journey in software engineering and FinTech, the lessons from Books&Co will stay with me. APIs aren’t just tools—they’re connections, bridges that link systems together. And if there’s one thing this project taught me, it’s that building bridges is what I want to keep doing in my career.