utf8 or latin1 as my collation in database MySQL?

Question

I'm creating a simple website with a database for a school project (it's not meant to be published). What's inside my database are names of students and their grades, as well as accounts of the teachers.

I don't really know what collation does to the website/database, and I kept on seeing some other people recommending utf8. I literally have no idea since this wasn't taught in school, and I'm still a beginner.

Should I switch to utf8_general_ci or stay with latin1_swedish_ci? It's just a simple website and database anyway. Thanks.

Answer 1

For general information utf8 is preferred.