Merlin Star's Website

I have been thinking about how about I am going to do my portfolio.

My general plans are to showcase my skills in SAS, SQL, R, and Python and have a technical explanation as well as a nontechnical explanation. Additionally, I plan to have a specific subsection describing how I would tackle on an issue with 1-2 pages of thoughts max and no code. This will be called something on the lines of “How I think” or something like that.

I want my portfolio to not be generic and cover about topics I like. So, my plans are to do analysis on things like mental health, bias, DEI efforts, and a couple of other things. Notably, I will be averting most common data analyst portfolio topics like real estate prices, stocks and bonds, and the such.

I also want my portfolio to cover more than just my data analyst skills. I want it to also cover psychology, accessibility, study design, writing, and just a few other things that I have been working on in 2022.

I will also have a separate brief portfolio for specifically recruiters. This will be just 1 “How I think”, 1 layman’s guide, and 1 technical piece. There will be a link to the full portfolio at the bottom if they are curious, but I doubt most recruiters want the full portfolio and just want an idea of what it is I can do.

I plan to have 5-6 technical and nontechnical explanations, 2-3 “How I think”, and maybe 1-2 things covering some of my other skills. I also plan to move my site from WordPress to being written from scratch and find another hosting provider. I do have knowledge of HTML and CSS and have already used this knowledge to make this website feel just a little more me style.

I plan to work on this over the next 12 months and have all of this completed by the end of next year.

However, a large part of this will also depend on if I get accepted into a PhD program or not. The above laid out plan is if I get into a PhD. If I only get into the CS master’s program, I plan to do all of the above in 2023 and a bit more. If I get rejected, I would also start contributing to open software I care about in late 2023. Additionally, I would like to do a thesis on ethical AI and how this affects nonbinary and Black people. Those are 2 commonly erased groups in the ethics of AI and I am both. My plans for my portfolio would extend to 2024, though it would be mostly contributing to open software and making it more accessible.

That is the general plan for my portfolio and how this will differ for PhD vs. 2nd masters. The portfolios for either case would start out the same, but the PhD one would lean more academically and showcase my research skills and interdisciplinary collaboration within academia. The 2nd masters one would lean more towards showing my skills on software, accessibility, and how I would contribute to software ethically and inclusively. I am hoping that in either case that this revamped portfolio will open doors to me and allow for me to find places better suited. I want a win-win where I feel welcomed and the organization wants me. So, this is basically my big overview plan for 2023 as far as portfolio goes.