Submitting a Maker Portfolio is optional, but it’s a powerful way to differentiate yourself in the admissions process. A well-crafted portfolio can highlight your intellectual curiosity, creative problem-solving abilities, technical expertise, and collaboration skills. Use this opportunity to narrate your engineering journey, offering admissions committees a clear view of what you create, how you approach your projects, and your passion for engineering.
Here are five essential tips to help you create an exceptional engineering maker portfolio:
1. Tailor Your Portfolio to the Audience
For General Admissions Staff: Your portfolio may be reviewed by admissions staff without a technical background. Include relevant technical details but explain your projects in simple, layman’s terms. Avoid excessive jargon to ensure your work is accessible to a broader audience.
For Technical Reviewers: If your portfolio is evaluated by experts, such as MIT’s Engineering Advisory Board, provide detailed technical descriptions. Highlight the complexities and technical aspects of your projects to engage these expert reviewers effectively.
Addressing both general and technical audiences ensures that your portfolio is compelling and informative to all reviewers.
2. Showcase Selective Projects You’re Proud Of
Select Key Projects: Instead of including every project you’ve ever worked on, focus on a few standout projects. Choose those that best showcase your problem-solving abilities, design thinking process, and technical skills.
Demonstrate Growth: Highlight how your skills have evolved. Include recent projects that address more complex challenges and reflect advancements in your technical expertise compared to earlier works.
Clarify Your Role in Group Projects: For collaborative projects, clearly define your role and contributions. Emphasize the soft skills you developed, such as teamwork and communication, as engineering often relies on effective collaboration.
Strategically selecting and presenting your projects will effectively showcase your technical growth, problem-solving capabilities, and collaborative skills.
3. “Show” Rather Than “Tell” Your Story
Document the Process: Make your portfolio more engaging by visually demonstrating your work. Include images and visuals of each project at various stages:
- Initial Concepts: Provide sketches or early design drafts.
- Development Stage: Show images of CAD models or prototypes in progress.
- Final Outcome: Present photos or videos of the completed project.
Add Context with Descriptions: Accompany visuals with brief, insightful text that explains:
- Project Choice: Why did you choose this project? What was your motivation?
- Challenges and Solutions: What problems did you encounter, and how did you address them?
- Impact: What was the overall outcome or impact of the project?
Highlight Research Effectively: In addition to submitting your research paper abstract or sharing your publication link if you have one, consider creating a video summary. This approach is often more engaging than uploading research papers and provides a dynamic way to showcase your findings.
Visually documenting and contextualizing your projects offers admissions committees a clearer view of your design thinking, problem-solving skills, and overall learning experience.
4. Choose the Right Platform
Select the most suitable platform to showcase your projects. You can build a digital portfolio website from scratch or use templates from platforms like WordPress or Squarespace. Alternatively, create videos and PDFs featuring clips, images, and descriptions of your projects and upload them to platforms like Slideroom. For Computer Science projects, consider using GitHub to manage and share your code effectively.
5. Optimize the Reviewer’s Experience
Ensure a smooth experience for portfolio reviewers by optimizing your content. Resize images to fit your chosen template and compress them to reduce file size. Tools like TinyJPG can help compress images without sacrificing quality, preventing long loading times and enhancing the overall user experience.
If you follow these tips closely, you’ll create a standout engineering maker portfolio that leaves a lasting impression on your audience.
Need more help with college planning for your STEM student? As always, feel free to reach out to me via email [email protected], call me at 650-596-9583 or set up a FREE 45 min initial consultation via my contact form. I am here to support you and your family through the college admissions process.