Starting a new project, wondering if Python is the best idea

[Spag]

Ok so I've picked up some literature and reference books for Python as it has started to interest me in the past few weeks. Now a project has rolled around at uni and I was wondering if I could use Python for what I need to do and then learn it at the same time, killing 2 birds with one stone so to speak.

What I want to do is create a sort of online social network for a university or college that is specific for that uni/colleges users. It will share some similarities with facebook in that every user will have an account, a place to upload photos, a place to post messages; but it will also have an area where users can store work and access there work via this site.
Originally I was thinking of doing something simple with PHP/MySQL but I am now wondering if this is possible using PHP/HTML and Python?
Or another combination of things...

Any help or insight into this would be greatly helpful.
Thanks

[scru]

If you're one of those people who can learn that way, the go for it.

You can actually do it with Python/MySQL using mod_python for apache. Although I think PHP is a better fit for web development (although I think it is an absolutely horrible language, but that's what python does to you).