My first professional portfolio

I have never created a professional portfolio before and frankly speaking, I have never thought of doing one before. I used to think that it is sufficient to have a resume and cover letter for job applications but after completing this first version of my portfolio, my opinion changed completely.

Having a professional portfolio provided a place for me to talk about things such as my personal background which otherwise could not fit onto a resume. It also allowed me to go into more details about the projects I have done instead of just listing them in one sentence on my resume. Moreover, by creating this portfolio, I was given the chance to seriously reflect on what I have learned in my four years of college and more importantly, what I want to do in future. I once again realize my weakness: Have knowledge of an array of technologies but don't know any of them in-depth. MyIsern was the only project that I considered to be qualified as a "project". I used to think I learned quite a lot in school. I guess, quantitatively, that is true. But quality-wise, I just don't have extensive experience in the technologies that I learned in class.

While pondering on my strengths and weaknesses as I worked through this professional portfolio, I was lead back to the reason of why I want to do an Honors Thesis. I am going to address my technical weaknesses by working on this Thesis. Sometimes, I am being asked why I am spending all the extra time and effort on something you are not required to do at all. My answer? There are three main reasons. Firstly, I am not satisfied with what I am getting out of the classes alone. We get to learn a new language for a semester but you only get to learn the basic. I feel like I learn quite an array of technologies but I don't know any of them well enough. I consider this as my weakness and I want to work on it. I see doing an Honors Thesis for a year as a good opportunity to drill on my skills. Moreover, the thesis would be something that I chose to do, unlike the projects that we are assigned to do in classes and I am excited about getting a project of my own. Secondly, I want to improve my English and by working on this thesis, I will be reading a lot and writing a lot which are good exercises to brush up my poor English. Lastly, I am still debating between going to graduate school and getting a job straight out of college. Doing this thesis should give me an idea of what it is like to be in the graduate program working on your own thesis and I hope to make a decision on that based on this experience.

Working on this portfolio gave me the chance to reflect on strengths and weaknesses and I am glad that now I have a clearer direction of what I am lacking and where I want to go next.