I initially learned the basics of building a personal website from our ACM Vice President, Jake Esperson, who also discussed the importance of creating a personal website. This inspired me to learn more about HTML/CSS and improve my resume through creating a website.
This website holds information that maintains a professional tone, showcasing my career as an engineering student, while also including personal touches that represent my personality. In other words, my website is meant to contain valuable information about my engineering career while displaying it in a creative way.
I built this website using the React. Though I had little to no knowledge about this at first, I familiarized myself with the syntax of HTML/CSS and used a basic website template to begin. Once I began uploading basic information and pictures, I expanded my website by adding more personal touches and updating information as needed.
At first, I kept the formatting of my website very basic. Eventually, I utilized a navigation bar so that the user could easily navigate through different parts of my website. Since I was using a gradient background, the navigation bar was affecting the general colors and layout of my website. Though this was not a significant issue, I faced a much harder challenge later. To add a creative touch to my website, I included a small 'game' on my projects page that allows users to navigate through a maze to read about my projects (I also made it so that the user has the option to simply click on each project to read about them). Creating a physical maze with lines was not challenging, but I had to create a little character and "trap" it inside the maze, not allowing it to move past certain boundaries. This required some help from AI, since I was very new to the syntax and was not sure how to create boundaries for the little 'game character', but I was eventually able to understand it better and continue expanding the maze myself.
I am very proud of the maze game that I implemented in my website, considering its initial difficulty. I also believe that it adds a sense of personality to my website, since I have always enjoyed game development and am a fan of playing video games myself.
Creating this website not only taught me the importance of showcasing my abilities, but also helped me understand how creativity and presentation are just as important as coding knowledge for any programmer. This is something I will try my best to implement in every future coding project.
Now that I have launched my website, I am getting feedback from peers to ensure that it is presentable to internship recruiters. I am also regularly updating the information on my website to make sure it is up to date with my projects and extracurriculars. I also plan to add details to my formatting and general CSS, considering the fact that there will always be room for improvement and more creativity, while maintaining the sole purpose of showcasing my programming skills.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.