Developing an academic website

Hey everyone! Thanks for visiting my website; I am currently in the process of building the site structure, adding files/images, and writing content for subpages. I added the blog section in here because this was built in from the “academicpages” theme that I forked from Github… We will see how many blog posts I actually make…

But I will say this: I did not realize how surprisingly easy it is to create your own website, particularly if you have a bit of familiarity with basic coding, markdown files, and git. If you already have a Github, you can use Githhub pages to host your static website for free by creating a repository with the naming convention “username.github.io”. To make building your website easier, you can fork other repositories with website templates, for instance the very popular academicpages theme that I have seen other fellow graduate students use. To make things even easier, the “academicpages” template uses simplified markdown files to produce HTML/CSS files with Jekyll.

There are basic instructions on the academicpages repository, seen on the bottom of their Github page and on the website itself which has even more detailed instructions on each page. I relied most heavily on the blog post by Jay Williams where he gives a thorough, step-by-step description on how he created his own academicpages website from start to finish. He also has several other posts on how to use Jekyll and how to further modify website content.

While a lot of the website-making process has been simplified, it does still require some work and creativity (which honestly has been pretty fun so far). I would certainly encourage any graduate student or young academic to create their own website. This allows you to tell your full academic story without condensing into a resume or CV and allows you to visually show your skills/achievements in more than just text, which might be more appealing to potential employers.

Related Articles:

• Why Every Job Seeker Should Have a Personal Website, And What It Should Include
• 5 Important Reasons Why You Still Need a Personal Website

The websites below offered some inspiration:

• https://jayrobwilliams.com/
• https://danielpimentel.github.io
• https://pcorrado.github.io
• https://agahkarakuzu.github.io
• https://violetabrown.com
• https://clauswilke.github.io/