Sessions in a while loop

PHP
1

Looking for advice on the following. I have a dynamic php page that connects to another dynamic php page and executes info depending on the var selected.
The vars need to be in a while loop but it is tricky to store each in a session. Also when I click a var and go to the next page, how do I check the var I selected? It was also suggested I store the sessions in an array but again how do I perform a check on the next page.

Code below

page1


<?php
$db=mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "compsci");
mysql_select_db("project", $db);
?>

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
        <title>Student Portal</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <ul>
<?php
		$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM degreeprogrammes");
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
            $faculty = $row[0];
        if ($faculty != "") {
           //link to faculty folder
                echo "<li><a href='".$faculty."'>".$faculty."</a></li>";
             $facultyName[] = $falculty;
        }
}
$_SESSION['falcultyName'] = $facultyName;

?>
</ul>
    </body>
</html>

page2



<?php
$db=mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "compsci");
mysql_select_db("project", $db);
session_start();
$fac = $_SESSION['facultyName']
?>

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Student Portal</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <ul>
		<?php
		$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM degreeprogrammes WHERE facultyName = '$fac'");
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
$degree1 = $row[3];
$degree2 = $row[4];
$degree3 = $row[5];
$degree4 = $row[6];
$degree5 = $row[7];
$degree6 = $row[8];
}
if ( $degree1 != "") {  echo "<li><a href='$degree1/'>$degree1</a></li>"; }
if ($degree2 != "") { echo "<li><a href='$degree2/'>$degree2</a></li>"; }
if ($degree3 != "") { echo "<li><a href='$degree3/'>$degree3</a></li>"; }
if ($degree4 != "") {  echo "<li><a href='$degree4/'>$degree4</a></li>"; }
if ($degree5 != "") {  echo "<li><a href='$degree5/'>$degree5</a></li>"; }
if ($degree6 != "") { echo "<li><a href='$degree6/'>$degree6</a></li>"; }
?>
</ul>
    </body>
</html>

If anyone knows a better, easier way to do this also please let me know :stuck_out_tongue:

2 

echo '<a href="page2.php?faculty='.$faculty.'">'.$faculty.'</a>';

// page 2
$faculty = $_GET['faculty'];