C# Beginner Capstone: Build a Study Tracker

The study tracker should let one user record a session, list sessions, view totals by topic, save data, and reopen it later. Those are observable outcomes. ‘Use inheritance’ is not a requirement; add a language feature only when it helps implement or protect an outcome.

Write acceptance examples before code. Recording C# for 30 minutes should add one session. Blank topic or zero minutes should be rejected. After two C# sessions of 30 and 20 minutes, the C# total should be 50. Restarting should preserve successfully saved sessions.

• -Record a topic, positive duration, and timestamp.
• -List all sessions in a readable order.
• -Show total minutes overall and grouped by topic.
• -Persist data to a file and recover from a missing first-run file.
• -Reject malformed input without terminating the menu.
• -Allow the user to quit explicitly.

First create StudySession with constructor validation, a List<StudySession>, and an Add session menu path. Do not add file formats, interfaces, and async I/O before one valid session can travel from input through parsing into the collection and back to visible output.

Then add listing and summaries. A loop can print sessions; LINQ can group by normalized topic and sum minutes. Keep normalization policy explicit—perhaps trim surrounding spaces and compare topics case-insensitively—so C# and c# do not accidentally become separate report categories.

var totalsByTopic = sessions
  .GroupBy(session => session.Topic, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase)
  .Select(group => new
  {
      Topic = group.Key,
      Minutes = group.Sum(session => session.Minutes)
  })
  .OrderByDescending(item => item.Minutes);

Choose a file format with an explicit schema. A beginner version can use one escaped or serialized record per line. Hand-splitting comma-separated text fails when topics contain commas, so use a real CSV library for CSV or System.Text.Json in a current local .NET project for JSON.

A repository class can own Load and Save while the domain model owns valid session rules. Treat a missing data file as an empty first run, but treat malformed existing content as a visible problem instead of silently discarding the user's history. Save through a temporary file and replace the destination when durability matters.

Manually test blank text, non-numeric duration, zero, one, a large allowed value, repeated topics with different case, an empty first run, an unreadable file, and a malformed record. Automated tests should cover constructor rules and summary calculations without depending on Console.

When a test is difficult to write, inspect whether input, storage, and calculation are mixed. Extract a boundary because it clarifies ownership, not merely to satisfy a mocking tool. Keep an end-to-end manual checklist because unit tests do not prove that prompts, paths, and serialization work together.

A complete beginner project has a documented run command, understandable structure, reliable core flows, and no known data-loss path for ordinary use. It does not need accounts, a database, a web UI, cloud deployment, and ten design patterns. Finish the promised scope before expanding it.

Afterward, choose a direction. For backend development, build an ASP.NET Core API over similar domain rules. For desktop or cross-platform UI, study a current .NET UI framework. For games, learn Unity's component model. In every path, add Git, automated testing, HTTP, JSON, dependency injection, databases, and security through real projects rather than disconnected syntax pages.