E-portfolio's are the newest and most effective way to compile work you've done as an engineering student or intern and share it with future employers. It enables you to collect, reflect on and display work you are most proud of during your engineering education.
Why should you create one?
- Job seeking tool: It is something tangible that you can show to a potential employer to prove what you are capable of. Anything you can do to separate yourself from others will help!
- Evaluative tool: It will help you, as well as your supervisors, to see what you have accomplished through the course of your engineering education.
- Reflective tool: Provides a means for you to reflect on your education experiences and to showcase your best work in a digital format. The process of creating an e-portfolio will enable you to more clearly define and understand your strengths and weaknesses and what you have learned through your experiences in school. By continuing to add to your portfolio over the next few years you will be able to see where you began, and how far you have come!
What should you put in your e-portfolio?
- Think of your e-portfolio as an extended résumé.
- Sample items to include:
- Two paragraphs on your career goals and objectives
- PDF or HTML versions of your résumé
- Contact information
- At least two artifacts with descriptions that showcase your skills.
- Professional e-portfolio artifacts can include samples of your written work, photos of a successful project, video of an oral presentation, etc.
- Provide descriptions of these artifacts that tell how they represent your skills, what your contributions were to the final product, how it was used, etc.
- Personal photograph
- Information about awards and honors received
- Organizations and activities in which you participate
- Links of interest (remember that this is for a professional audience)
How to put it all together:
- The most important thing to remember when putting together your portfolio materials is that they must be well organized
- Consider organizing your portfolio on paper (storyboarding) before beginning work on the electronic version.
- Carefully consider what type of media will be best for each item you want to include (images, video, audio, Flash, text, etc.). The simpler, the better.
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To see examples and helpful information for developing your e-portfolio, see:
http://sites.google.com/site/eportfoliostanley/
