Univ. of Washington, Geog. 493, Portfolios

University of Washington
Geography 493
Portfolios

Contents:
Types of portfolios
Keep in mind: resources and ideas
Examples of portfolios

TYPES OF PORTFOLIOS
You need to decide what sort and what format of portfolio serves your purposes:

Learning portfolio (various projects and papers, with notes about what you learned, what difficulties you overcame)
Career portfolio: all sorts of examples of work, awards, etc.
Job portfolio: tailored to a specific job that you have or want; best examples of work, with specific capabilities mentioned.

Format?

Web-based
Paper-based
Hybrid: web based with key examples available in print

By the end of the quarter, when we review the portfolios, let us know what sort and format you select, so we can all view it with the appropriate expectations.

We plan to award a prize for best student portfolio (not only from this course).

We would like to compile URLs for, or examples of, each of your current portfolios; give Rick Roth the URL, and tell whether it is just for dissemination within this class, or whether it could be listed on a department list of students' websites?

KEEP IN MIND
[also see UW Geography's Careers website on portfolios]

1) Remember: you are telling a story about yourself that is essentially an argument (masquerading as a representation) that you are a player, someone who is well on the way to being an insider. Key concepts: relevance, breadth, and depth.

2) You have certain competitive advantages coming out of this department: our reputation , our alumni network, YOUR good work in classes, YOUR relevant projects, internships outside of class

3) Provide a digest-type overview of your relevant technical skills, experience, and accomplishments, developed across the curriculum, rather individual courses

4) Provide narrated examples of your academic and professional work, broken into parts and steps, processes, and technical challenges (and their solutions): guide the viewer to understand how these illustrate your:

intellectual capabilities (What are the intellectual themes you want the viewer to catch? How did you move from general question to a decision on the actual problem?)
technical skills (make explicit what the technical challenges were)
management experience (How did you organize your tasks and time? How was team work negotiated and divided? [Don't write negatively about others])

5) choose a FEW key examples--don't put up everything, and don't put up entire papers no one will read. Use snippets, highlights, extracts, etc to convey process, intellectual engagement, excitement over your work.