The undergraduate journey does not necessarily follow one imagined direction. A student of Industrial Design may develop an interest in creative content development and take up jobs in public relations for a career. While the university expected that students, early in their undergraduate journey, learn new skills and review their work progress, employers expect students to be equipped with the necessary skills and attitude to be ready to enter a career while they build work experience with corporate organizations evident in their student’s portfolios.
Students’ portfolios are not expected to be fully polished as per work experience. What an employer is interested in at the level of graduation is potential and not work experiences. Having a student’s portfolio will help to showcase the journey that an applicant has been on, from having initial ideas to creating something. Students’ portfolios should make sense in the context of a journey that one has undertaken so far.
Because the university is designed to help students develop specific skills towards an area of specialization, it will not give a full understanding of that skill because the potential to learn new skills are inborn in the students’ mind. It’s therefore important for students to look around and understand the work that is socially relevant to their discipline early in their academics.
For example, Students looking to further careers in areas like Arts, Creative Content Development, Graphics Designs, Website Development, Software Engineering, Architecture, Digital and Social Media Analyst etc. should be able to build a portfolio for employers and potential partners to see in terms of presentation – a process of revealing oneself as a practitioner.
Portfolios are important documents in one’s life and has helped many people reach the desired outcome. One of the importance of including the range of works that you have done is to show that you are open-minded and that your practice is evolving. Hence, it becomes important for every student to start building their portfolios early, even if they are not happy about their achievements in school.
A simple student’s portfolio should include everything, from their involvement at the start of their academic journey – the thought process such as honours, awards, academic accomplishments, completed tasks, artworks, lab reports, volunteer activities and physical projects.
In light of the above, Skyline University Nigeria is playing a vital role in helping students identify criteria for selecting and creating portfolios. This role will enable them to learn how to combine achievements and commentary in their portfolio to craft an effective argument or statement about their learning and to develop in them the ability to describe specific features of their areas of specialization.