Build your own digital portfolio

Building my own digital portfolio has been quite the journey. At first, I had no clue what a digital portfolio even was. When you think of a portfolio, you usually picture artists or designers showing off their work—so the idea of a researcher’s portfolio felt a bit out of place for me. I mean, how do you turn your research into something presentable without it feeling like just a fancy CV? It still feels a bit odd, but I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of it.

Once I had an idea of what I wanted to include (and the purpose behind it), the next big hurdle hit: how the heck do I actually build it? Initially, I tried using one of the platforms we learned about in class, but man, some of them had confusing customization options, and others barely had any free features. After spending a few days wandering around Wordpress and Wix, I quickly gave up on that route and decided to try Notion instead. I’m way more familiar with Notion since I use it like a journal for my 9-to-5, so it felt like building a clean, simple page would be a bit easier. I knocked out a first draft pretty quickly (check it out here: Notion Portfolio), but it still felt pretty empty—almost boring. Notion was even more restrictive than I imagined, and you couldn’t really do much to make it look interesting, so I had to ditch that idea too.

Eventually, I decided to just code my portfolio myself. There was only one problem: I have zero knowledge of HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. But I didn’t let that stop me. The solution I came up with was using a GitHub template—basically, I picked one that already had the basic structure built in. That way, I didn’t have to know front-end development, but I still had enough freedom to make it feel like my portfolio. Once I settled on a template I liked, it was time to dive into YouTube tutorials to learn how to modify it and add my content. It was a little messy at first, but I eventually got the hang of it.

The end result? I’m happy with it, for now. It’s definitely a work in progress, but I plan to keep improving it over the next few months, hopefully learning some HTML and CSS along the way so I can make the page even better. Honestly, it’s been a journey for what was supposed to be a 5-hour course, but a pretty enjoyable one. Having everything I’ve done professionally in one place is already helping me stay organized—especially when I’m juggling multiple projects at the same time.

Now, the hardest part: keeping the portfolio updated. But hey, I’m motivated, and the excitement is still there!