Brand Yourself: A how-to guide for grad students
This week the DigiLab offered a workshop on building a digital identity for grad students. Maintaining a clear, cohesive digital profile is increasingly necessary in a competitive job market, but it can be overwhelming to sift through all the options. The goal of this session, led by Linguistics PhD student and DigiLab research assistant Joey Stanley, along with Digital Humanities Coordinator Emily McGinn, was to help grad students navigate all of their options and help them take control of their online professional identity.
The presentation discussed a variety of methods for increasing visibility and for engaging in professional conversations in the digital world. While these spaces may be different depending on the discipline, what’s most important is to create a single place where all of one’s separate accounts from places like LinkedIn, Academia.edu, and Research Gate can be consolidated. The main objective of the workshop was for each participant to set up this space before they left. With both Stanley and McGinn on hand for extra assistance, each participant was asked to choose a platform they were comfortable with and to get started building their own space. By the end of the session, grad students had accepted the challenged and set up their own websites. Some opted for a free Word Press or Wix account. One even took the challenge to the next level and built his own website using Jekyll and GitHub.
Setting up a consolidated web presence does not have to be expensive, or complicated, or difficult. This workshop provided the space, the time, and the resources to help these grad students get started. For those interested in doing the same check out Joey’s notes on the session or download the slides here.
If you’re interested in this session or others like it, let us know. We’d love to continue the conversation. Contact Emily McGinn at digi@uga.edu for more information.