Personal Projects and Portfolio Building

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

Agenda

• What are personal projects and their importance?
• Ideation process for creating projects
• Big Picture and Scope of Relevance
• What is a personal portfolio and how do we build one?
• What does a good personal portfolio look like?
• Utilize GitHub for a Website Portfolio!

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

Personal Projects

• Projects done in your own free time!
• I.e. NOT classwork projects
• Showcase of skills in a unique and creative way
• Can be referenced from existing projects or built from scratch

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

Importance

• Push your level of understanding
• Burden is entirely on you to level up your skills
• Demonstrate valuable skills such as problem-solving, utilization of tools, and showcase of overall coding proficiency
• Can also be used to help your community if your project is oriented as such

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

Ideation and Getting Started

• Pick something that you are passionate in learning about!
• If you’re really stuck, some good starters include a full-stack website, a simple mobile app, data visualization using matplotlib, etc.
• Online Projects can be used as starting points
• Attend hackathons for added motivation!

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

Within Project Development

• Learn the tools
• Google Search, ChatGPT and YouTube to explain
• Define clear goals for your project
• Measure your progress against milestones and your desired finish point
• Error handling
• Use stackoverflow and other resources debug
• Get constructive feedback from friends and family

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

Publish Your Projects

• Publish your projects to your GitHub
• Give credits and list out the resources used
• Continue to develop your projects
• Don’t just be one and done
• Develop 3 solid projects to list on your resume/portfolio
• Know them like the back of your hand

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

Project Example

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

Big Picture

• First and Second Years
• Most likely haven’t had a chance to get industry experience (internship)
• Companies won’t expect previous working experience with entry-level internships
• Main Objective: Show interest and drive within your field of interest
• Can all be encapsulated in a Portfolio

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

Creating a Portfolio

• Organized Collection of projects and work experience
• Usually documented on a website
• Will contain
• Personal Projects
• Research/Internship Experience
• Extracurriculars
• Contact Points

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

What do Good Portfolio’s look like?

• Clean Design that catches the viewer's’ attention
• Simple Navigation
• Individualized theme that embodies your vision
• Use reliable web hosting
• Add testimonials (if any)

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

Let’s view some portfolios!

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

GitHub Pages

Let’s create our own website!

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

Demo Agenda

• Create Github Account
• Install Git
• Set up SSH Keys
• Fork a repository
• Clone the repo
• Small modification (just change the name)
• Add, commit, push
• Repeat

Discord: tinyurl.com/acmDiscordLink

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop

Challenge!

Let’s add your own flair to your website…

Ideas:

• Add in your background/pitch
• Add a contact form
• Add a header element for a Projects section
• Change the color and images

Slides: tinyurl.com/acmportfolioworkshop