static Connection establishConnection(){
        try{
            Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"); //The name of the SQL Driver
            connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/bapers?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf-8&useSSL=false", username, password); //Create a connection to the database
            JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Connection successful!");  //Show a pop-up dialogue if the connection is successful
            return connection;

        } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (SQLException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return connection;
    }