Personal projects, or side projects (completed outside school), are an excellent way to deepen your experience and show companies that you would be a great hire for their team.

In this section you will learn:

1. The benefits of personal projects
2. What type of side projects you can take on
3. How to communicate side projects

Benefits of personal projects

• Add experience and interest to your LinkedIn and resume

• Demonstrate to companies that you would be a great fit for an internship

• Give you something substantial to talk about when asked “what have you done” in a interview

• Provide recruiters with a sense of you as an individual, and makes you more memorable

• Make you much better prepared when you are hired for a software role

• Allow you to meet and talk with people who work in tech

• Let you advance your skills and focus on something that interests you!

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqRtg-82lAg&list=PLrT2tZ9JRrf628Q_6ZSAPORLBBnXO6onV&index=2

What type of side projects can you take on?

Successfully working on a side project will require both your time and interest, so it’s a good idea to choose something that genuinely appeals to you.

Some ideas to build your out-of-class portfolio might include:

• Taking CodePath courses which involve building hands-on projects.
• Starting a blog (or post on Medium) to share and journal concepts you are learning. Write about anything you find interesting as you learn.
• Building a web application that you can share and link to. Not just a site, but something storing or adapting data which other people can use.