Portfolio Theme

The main theme of my portfolio I would have to say is variety. I feel like I have a good broad collection of works that touch on a bunch of different categories. This initially made me think that there isn't a solid theme to my portfolio, but I would say that this theme of broad works is the theme. In addition to this, I noticed a deeper theme of a work in progress and always working to improve. I chose to have most of the images in my portfolio to be in a sketch style. This wasn't intentional at first, but combining this consistent style with that of broad multifaceted pieces I feel like this contributes to the sense that I am always working to improve myself and my work and take myself in new directions.

This theme of constant improvement I feel is consistent throughout my pieces because I feel that there is clear growth displayed through each of them along a certain branch of thought. For instance, in my computer science papers, the first one I wrote for my Software for AI Robotics class the language is a lot less confident. In the most recent paper, I wrote for my major, in the Introduction to Artificial Intelligence class, the language is far more confident and assertive.

I tried to represent these connections chronologically in the pages that they are featured in. For the most part, the older work is above the newer work, drawing my reader along the same path of growth that I went on. This was initially a subconscious act, but now that I noticed it in a few places, I need to go back and fix it in the few places where this is not the case.

I honestly am unsure how this could go on to help me professionally. I am working on applying for jobs in the software engineering field in another country right now. Good English writing is valued, but not as highly as programming prowess. I could expand this website to include some of my code, but those are complex webs of files spanning potentially gigabytes of data. I feel that would be better showcased on a dedicated website, or on my GitHub where they have happily lived for the past 4 years.

I feel like my portfolio is helping me to appreciate all the learning and opportunities that I have had over the last few years. Coming up to graduation in the next few weeks I've been feeling a little down about my college experience. I started in 2020 with COVID lockdowns plaguing my first few years. Because of this, I found it hard to find a solid group of established friends, so a major focus of my college life has been on academics. This has been kind of a drag, but honestly, it means that I have accomplished some great things in my 4 years at DU. I just hope that going into the real world isn't as scary as it seems to me right now.