Introducing Myself; PortfolioPage w/ Jekyll+Bootstrap;

Hi there fellow campers :slight_smile:

I’ve actually not been terribly consistently active w/ FCC but it has helped inspire me to build this portfolio page. The truth is, I was going to school, majoring in computer engineering, but ran out of finances to finish my degree, with 27 credits to go. Long story short, it was because I discovered you can only take out student loans for a certain amount of hours without finishing a degree before they cut you off. Thus, leaving my first university where I was 3/4ths the way through my curriculum and applying to the school of engineering at a different university, where I would have to start at the beginning of an entirely new curriculum, ended up being my demise. :worried: Having been in college for 6 years and accumulating over 180 hours (and a ton of student loans), and not graduating, kind of put me in a state of depression for that past year, tbh. But I’m finally crawling out from underneath my rock and realizing that, even though I did not graduate. I still have acquired a variety of skills/knowledge in the field of computer science that I can use, and continue to develop, to pursue a career in software development!

Thus, I am officially on the path of building my portfolio page, which FCC’s curriculum pointed out to me is important to have. In recent weeks I have actually began using github/git actively for the first time outside of one school project. And figured out how to host my portfolio page via github pages for free! I have not yet discovered if I will be able to change my domain to a custom one or not for free, but I’ll keep you posted :stuck_out_tongue:

Link to website/portfolio page

I have not yet applied for a single developer job, even though I may be ready to some extent. I will feel more confident if I first spend time adding past projects I’ve worked on in school to my portfolio page, as well as working on some new ones in order to knock the rust off my programming skills, having not used them much in my year of hiding under a rock. I spent the last 2 days refreshing/reviewing myself with some simple javascript algorithms by completing FCC’s basic algorithm section. From here I plan on finding some more old projects to add to my portfolio page as well as working on some of FCC’s recommended projects!

I would LOVE:heart_eyes: any kind of productive FEEDBACK, big or small, that I can take to heart and make my page better. :rocket:

Any suggestions on something I could change, or make better, or add, would be MUCH APPRECIATED! Also if anyone has any recommendations on which FCC projects they think would be best for me to pursue completing and adding to my portfolio, that would be great too! I just joined the forum yesterday actually, so I haven’t had the chance to read a ton of post yet. But I did stumble across a helpful post last night made by @P1xt, that listed some interesting sounding projects he recommends! So I’ll definitely be looking into some of those in the following weeks to come.

I also just wanted to kind of say “hi” :wave: to the community and kind of introduce myself, since I plan on being a regular here in the up coming months. :relaxed:
Since coming over to the forum for the first time yesterday evening, I have even found myself helping a fellow camper who had a question about one of the entry level javascript problems. After sending an initial answer I found myself going out for dinner/drinks to celebrate new years eve and to my surprise, I got an email alert when he responded, thus making it super easy for me to just click on and reply. And after a few more replies back and forth I felt like I genuinely helped him understand functions a little better and I think that was probably a good experience for him, being able to seek and find help when he needed it. And it felt really good to be able to help someone like that!

Also I just wanted to give a shout out to @QuincyLarson. And let him know that he truly helped me, during a period in which I needed it most. In the form of podcast, where I stumbled upon and was inspired to the point which I found myself searching and listening to every podcast I could find in which Quincy Larson was, usually a guest, speaking. Which of course brought me here to free code camp and back onto the path of enlightenment. I have even started listening to audiobooks, over music, in my down time, thanks to Quincy. :smiley: And I’m loving it!

My apologies for the length of this post, being concise has never been one of my strong suits. And I must say, if any person actually does make it through the entirety of this post. Then I must say to you friend, you truly are a camper / trooper. :blush: -CraftyClark

TLDR;
Would love any constructive criticism towards my page!
Just wanted to say “hi” to the community and I look forward to meeting and interacting with you all! Or maybe someday, even trying some of this pair programming I hear so many good things about :grin:
-Cheers to 2017-

2 Likes

Hi Andrew- welcome,

Sounds like you’ve had some trying times lately!
Try to remember that the roughness of life gives contrast to its beauty… warm is only warm so long as there is cold.

Your website looks pretty good!
The only things I picked up on (as little issues) were the low res pictures used… your face and the city-scape… it takes away from the overall professional presentation.

Cheers
Leo