Over winter break, I was able to work with Carleton’s German Department to begin setting up a site using WordPress. For my first time using the platform, I quickly found that I thoroughly enjoyed the design aspects of creating a website, but also that WordPress can feel a bit limiting and intimidating when you don’t know what you’re doing. That being said, with some of the skills we’ve learned in class, such as HTML and CSS basics, setting up my own website comes with a sense of true freedom to create something highly personalized.
In the future, I can see a personal website like this being extremely valuable as a sort of hub from which I can direct potential employers, collaborators, or even friends through my previous projects, updates, and external links to LinkedIn and other social platforms. In short, I hope to use this site as a Curriculum Vitae where I can showcase my accomplishments.
As I mentioned earlier, creating my own site comes with a feeling of freedom of creativity. That being said, that freedom is also a little bit overwhelming. The one aspect that I changed with CSS was the background color (from white to a sort of mint), but I’m not even convinced I want to keep it that way. Once I figure out the sort of design elements I like, I can piece together a more cohesive and pleasant site, which will allow me to have much more creative control over my social representation than on other social media platforms. Until then, however, the overwhelming number of options may be the most significant drawback for me.
