What's the point of a portfolio?

The end of the semester is approaching. Ah, 15 weeks and 5 days of summer break is almost here! But first- it's the dreaded end-of-semester portfolio.

*Wilhelm scream*

Time to take a selection of previously written papers- the ones we put off, thought about, struggled over, suffered headaches from, and finally finished, usually while running on coffee and junk food just hours before they were due. That sense of relief from thinking, "That's it, I'm out of time. It's good enough." has now been replaced by the stress of selecting samples of our best work, then editing them to ensure they represent our skill as writers. It's like having five papers due at once, with the added pressure of revisiting the stress that came with them in the first place.

So what's the point? Do our professors just love to torture us? Well, maybe some of them do, but that's not why they assign portfolios. As we wrap up our college careers and prepare to step out into the real world, the portfolios we put together for school could be one of the best tools we take with us. As we venture into the increasingly competitive job market, a well-designed portfolio could be the one thing that sets us apart from other candidates.

As we discussed in class, there may be differing opinions on who has the power, but ultimately, the power rests in the hands of the writer who decides what information will be recorded and passed on. As I phrased it for our midterm study session, "Controlling the information that is included in publication controls what knowledge others have, which keeps the power in the hands of the authors. (Longo p48)"

Longo specifically discussed this power in terms of education- standardizing textbooks to ensure that students are trained in a specific way. However, we also have the power to use our writing to manipulate how we are perceived, especially by potential employers. By putting together a portfolio that is made up of work carefully selected to show our skills in multiple types of writing and our ability to research, analyze, and pay close attention to instruction and detail, we can set ourselves apart from others in the market. To be confident that our portfolio shows us in a positive light, we must select samples of our best work- the papers that, when we hit 'save' and 'print,' made us sigh, "Now that is a beautiful piece of writing." The ones we wanted to frame and hang on the wall for the world to see. And once we've selected these pieces, we must go over them again and improve absolutely anything that can be improved. That might me catching a typo here or there or fixing some minor grammatical errors. It might mean changing the format of a document entirely and cutting entire paragraphs while filling in details in others. And during the process, we must remember that it's not just for a grade. It could seriously impact our futures.