title: Accessing another table's attributes with a foreign key and belongs_to association
body: <p>I am having trouble accessing an a related model's attributes by a foreign key. </p>
  
  <p>Each user has many applications
  Each application belongs to one school </p>
  
  <p>When I try to show the school_name attribute in the users dashboard (user#show), I get a undefined method error for school_name</p>
  
  <p>The application has a user_id and a school_id, which should serve as foreign keys. I was thinking there might be a problem with this, but couldn't find documentation. </p>
  
  <p>I can call @application.school_id and it will return the correct integer value, but related attributes on the school table are irretrievable.</p>
  
  <p>Any help would be much appreciated.</p>
  
  <p>Users controller</p>
  
  <pre><code>class UsersController &lt; ApplicationController
    before_filter :authenticate_user!
  
    def show
      @user = current_user
      @applications = @user.applications :include =&gt; [:school_name]
  
    end
  end
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>User Model</p>
  
  <pre><code>class User &lt; ActiveRecord::Base
    # Include default devise modules. Others available are:
    # :confirmable, :lockable, :timeoutable and :omniauthable
    devise :database_authenticatable, :registerable, :recoverable, :rememberable, :trackable, :validatable, :confirmable
  
  
    has_many :applications 
    has_many :editors, :through =&gt; :applications
    has_and_belongs_to_many :schools 
  end
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>User/show.html.erb</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;div class="hero-unit"&gt;
  &lt;center&gt;&lt;h1&gt; Hello &lt;%= @user.name %&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&lt;/center&gt;
  
  &lt;%= link_to "New Application", new_application_path %&gt;
  
  &lt;h2&gt;
      Current Applications
  &lt;/h2&gt;
  
  
  &lt;%@applications.each do |app|%&gt;
  &lt;%= app.school_name %&gt;
  &lt;%end%&gt;
  
  
  
  
  
  &lt;/div&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Application Model</p>
  
  <pre><code>require 'carrierwave'
  class Application &lt; ActiveRecord::Base
      mount_uploader :app_file, ImageUploader
      belongs_to :user, :class_name =&gt; User, :foreign_key =&gt; "user_id"
      belongs_to :school, :class_name =&gt; School, :foreign_key =&gt; "school_id"
      belongs_to :editor
      end
  </code></pre>