The Peterson School

The Peterson School offers a large and frequently changing catalog of trade education programs across multiple campuses, online formats, schedules, subjects, and experience levels.

The website needed to:

• Make a complex course catalog easy to search and browse
• Organize courses by subject, location, schedule, delivery method, and experience level
• Connect the public website with CampusCE, the school’s external registration platform
• Keep course descriptions and enrollment information consistent across two separate systems
• Help people with no trade experience understand where to begin
• Promote customized on-site training to employers
• Connect students and alumni with relevant employment opportunities
• Allow outside employers to submit jobs without needing access to the CMS

I built the website as a structured course-discovery system rather than a simple list of classes.

Courses, subjects, locations, schedules, and enrollment details are stored as related content, allowing visitors to browse by trade, find beginner-friendly options, compare programs, and identify classes offered online or at a convenient campus.

Registration is completed through CampusCE, a third-party academic platform. I customized its templates and styling so the registration experience closely matches The Peterson School website rather than feeling like an unrelated external system.

Maintaining the same course information in two places created another challenge. CampusCE provides staff with a basic WYSIWYG editor, which can lead to inconsistent formatting and missing links. I created private, administrator-only pages that generate correctly structured course descriptions from the website’s content. Staff can copy the finished HTML into CampusCE with consistent headings, enrollment details, book links, and formatting already in place.

To better serve people entering the trades, I introduced a dedicated For Beginners pathway. Beginner course pages include additional guidance explaining who the course is for, the level of experience required, the time commitment, and whether the course contributes toward licensing.

I also created promotional calls to action for customized off-site training. These appear alongside relevant course information and direct employers to a request form for bringing classes to their facility or organization.

The job site allows employers to submit opportunities through a public-facing form. Each submission creates a structured entry in the CMS for staff review. Jobs are categorized using the same trade subjects as the course catalog, helping students and alumni find positions related to their training.

The Peterson School now has a unified digital platform that supports the complete path from discovering a trade to enrolling in a course and finding related employment.

Prospective students can explore programs by subject, location, schedule, format, and experience level. Employers can request customized training or submit job opportunities, while students and alumni can search openings connected to their field.

Behind the scenes, staff have structured tools that reduce duplicate work, improve consistency between the website and CampusCE, and make a large course catalog easier to maintain.