What Is a Portfolio?
The portfolio requirement is both a "capstone" experience in which you demonstrate the skills and abilities you are taking with you into the job market, and an on-going experience of reflection that begins when you enter the IST program. If you will be job-hunting, the porfolio process provides an opportunity for you to define your professional goals as clearly as possible through assemblingthe evidence of your skils and abilities. If you are returning to a job that has already been established for you, the portfolio provides a complete picture of the skills and abilities you are taking back with you from this program.
From your first day in the program you should begin collecting the tangible evidence of skills that you are developing; save your project work and your drafts and protoypes. If you have brought professional or academic experience with you into the program, begin thinking about the evidence you might be able to show from that experience. Your portfolio will reflect your overall professional profile, not just your work as a student
In addition to saving and collecting your own work, you should be carrying out reflections for yourself, perhaps at the end of each semester or course. What have you learned? How has your perspective shifted, and what can you do now that you could not do before? What about your professional goals? Which kinds of activity are you going to want to do more often, and which less? What are the possibilities for your professional future that you see differently, see for the first time, or see again with increased clarity? Most importantly, what does the work you are saving this term for possible inclusion in your portfolio demonstrate about you? When you show that work to someone in the future, what do you want that person to know about you from reviewing the work?
What is the portfolio not?
The portfolio is not supposed to be simply a record of the work you did in the IST program. Do not assemble your portfolio as a plain chronology of your course work or project work in the IST program.
is not a document produced to a standard specification. It must be unique to you and your professional goals -- one of the primary measures of success for your portfolio is the degree to which it supports your statement of professional goals.
Portfolio samples
Look for print-based portfolio samples in the main IST office. You are welcome to review these within the department, but they cannot be taken away from the building. For online examples, review the portfolios linked below. All samples are used with the express permission of their creators.