Last week I was staring at my laptop at 1:30 a.m., switching between LinkedIn, a half-finished Notion page, and yet another “portfolio builder” template. Then it hit me: if my work lives everywhere and nowhere at once, do I actually exist on the internet in any clear way?
You need a personal website before you graduate because it gives you a single, searchable, professional home for everything you are building and learning. It helps you control what shows up when someone Googles your name, turns random projects into a coherent story, and quietly works for you 24/7 while everyone else is still arguing about which template to use.
Why a personal website matters way more than another line on your CV
At some point, you have probably heard a tutor, recruiter, or annoying LinkedIn guy say, “You are your own brand.” Most of the time that just sounds like vague career noise.
The twist is: they are not entirely wrong. The problem is that many students try to “build a brand” inside platforms that they do not control.
Here is how having your own website changes that:
- You control the first impression: A domain with your name gives you a clean, intentional starting point for anyone curious about you.
- You tell one clear story: Courses, side projects, internships, random hackathon wins, club roles, all stitched into a narrative instead of scattered profiles.
- You look like someone who follows through: A working website with recent content signals that you can finish things and maintain them.
- You stand out in unfair ways: Most students never ship a personal site, so the bar is low and the signal is high.
- You get compounding benefits: Every project you add strengthens everything else, like a portfolio that levels up with you.
A personal website is less about design flair and more about owning a small, clear corner of the internet with your name on it.
A lot of people delay this because they want the “perfect” design or the “right” tech stack. That is usually an excuse that hides a different fear: “What if I put myself out there and it looks unimpressive?”
The honest answer: at student stage, nobody expects you to look complete. People care more that you are shipping and learning in public than whether your typography is perfect.
Google yourself: what do you actually look like online?
I did this during a lecture once instead of following the slides. I searched my name in an incognito window and realized I looked like three different people:
- A half-updated LinkedIn with an old profile photo.
- An abandoned GitHub from first-year programming labs.
- A random club event photo where I am in the background, slightly blurry.
No wonder recruiters and collaborators get confused. They are trying to guess which version of you is the current one.
If your online presence feels like puzzle pieces from different board games, a website is the picture on the box.
Here is what someone who is serious about you will usually do:
| What they do | What they see without a website | What they see with a website |
|---|---|---|
| Search your name | Scattered profiles, old photos, random club pages | Yourname.com at the top or near the top |
| Skim the first link | Generic LinkedIn with same template as everyone else | Curated overview of your work and interests |
| Look for proof | Maybe a CV file if they dig | Case studies, demos, writing, GitHub, all in one place |
| Make a judgment | “Looks fine, similar to other students” | “This person is serious, curious, and ships things” |
The point is not to fake anything. The point is to stop letting search results write your story for you.
Personal branding without cringing: what it actually means as a student
“Personal branding” can sound like you need a logo, a color palette, and a life philosophy at age 20. That is not the goal.
At student level, personal branding really comes down to three questions:
- What topics and problems do you care enough about to work on?
- What kinds of projects show that in a concrete way?
- Where can someone find those projects without digging through six platforms?
Your brand is not the adjectives you claim about yourself, it is the trail of work you leave behind.
For example, someone might describe themselves like this:
- “I am a CS student interested in AI and education.”
There is nothing wrong with that, but it is abstract. On a website, that same person can show:
- A simple web app that quizzes students with spaced repetition.
- A blog post about trying to fine-tune a model on class notes.
- A writeup of a hackathon project building study tools.
Now “AI + education” is not a buzzword combination. It is visible work.
What a personal website does that LinkedIn cannot
LinkedIn is useful, but it has limits:
| Your own website | |
|---|---|
| Same layout for everyone | Custom structure that fits your story |
| Optimized for job titles | Optimized for projects, experiments, and learning |
| Harder to show messy projects or failures | Easy to show work in progress and lessons learned |
| Owned by a company that changes rules | Owned by you, on your domain |
| People skim for 30 seconds | People who arrive expect to explore |
You do not need to abandon LinkedIn. You use it as a funnel. Everything points to your own site, where the full story lives.
Why “before you graduate” actually matters
I used to think, “I will make a proper website when I have more experience.” Then I realized that line of thinking never ends. The goalpost keeps moving.
Having a website during university changes things in three ways.
1. You get reps while the stakes are low
Right now, fewer people will judge you harshly. You are expected to be learning and experimenting.
Shipping a version 1 website as a student is practice for shipping bigger, scarier things later.
You get to:
- Test different layouts and content without fear.
- Learn basic web skills that transfer to almost any field.
- Make mistakes while nobody is expecting a polished founder portfolio.
Waiting until you “feel ready” usually means waiting until people expect you to be perfect.
2. Your projects compound over several years
Imagine two students:
| Student A | Student B |
|---|---|
| Builds a simple site in first year and keeps updating it | Waits until final year to “build a personal brand” |
| Logs hackathons, side projects, and course projects as they happen | Forgets half of what they built and cannot find old files |
| By graduation: 3-4 years of visible progress and learning | By graduation: 1 rushed site with shallow project descriptions |
The work might be similar in quality. The difference is visibility and narrative.
Over time, your website shifts from “Here is what I did this year” to “Here is the arc of what I have been doing for several years.”
3. You catch opportunities you do not see yet
Most useful opportunities do not come from job boards. They come from weak ties: a friend of a friend, a professor, a random person who finds your project.
When you have a site:
- Friends can send your link to someone interested, in two seconds.
- Speakers who visit your campus can quickly check what you are about.
- Startup teammates can evaluate you beyond “year and major.”
No post, CV, or networking event can fully predict who will find you interesting. Your job is to make it easy for that person to see your work in one click.
What should actually be on your site? (Minimum viable version)
During a group project, one of my teammates said, “I will start a site when I have enough content.” That is backwards. You start the site to force yourself to produce clearer content.
For students, a simple structure works best. You can think in terms of four core pages.
You do not need 12 pages and a blog archive. You need a clear homepage and a small number of strong examples.
1. Homepage: the 10-second snapshot
This is where most people will land. It should answer:
- Who are you?
- What are you interested in building or learning?
- What should a visitor do next?
A clean homepage might include:
- A short introduction in 2-3 sentences.
- 1-2 focus areas (for example: “Student entrepreneur exploring fintech for students” or “CS student building tools for campus communities”).
- Links to your top 3 projects.
- Links to your main profiles (LinkedIn, GitHub, Behance, etc.).
You do not need a long autobiography. Think of it like answering, “What are you working on these days?” but in text form.
2. Projects: your “this is what I actually do” section
This page carries most of the weight.
Each project entry should cover:
- What you built or did.
- Why you did it.
- What tools or methods you used.
- What changed because of it (results, users, lessons).
You can use a simple, repeatable format:
- Title: “Campus Deals App for Local Cafes”
- Context: “Hackathon project with 3 teammates over 36 hours”
- Problem: “Students did not know about time-limited food discounts”
- What I did: “Built the backend and basic UI, integrated Stripe test payments”
- Outcome: “Demoed to 5 local cafes, 3 said they would pilot if we continued”
- Link: GitHub, Figma, live demo, or screenshots
The key is to talk like a real person, not like a corporate annual report. Say what went wrong, what you changed, what you would try next time.
3. About: who is the person behind the projects?
This is where you can be more narrative. Not dramatic, just honest.
Things to include:
- Where you study and what you are focusing on.
- A short version of how you got curious about your area.
- What you are experimenting with right now.
- One or two non-academic interests that show you are a human.
For example:
“I am a third-year mechanical engineering student who cares about low-cost prototypes for student hardware startups. During a design course I realized how many classmates have cool hardware ideas but no way to cheaply test them. Now I am exploring simple ways to build and share physical prototypes on near-zero budgets.”
This is clear, grounded, and gives people a hook to connect with.
4. Contact: remove friction for good emails
You want to make it extremely easy for the right people to reach you and slightly harder for bots and spam.
You can:
- List a dedicated email address that you check regularly.
- Add links to your main social accounts.
- Give a hint about what you are open to (for example: collaborations, feedback on projects, internships, student startup ideas).
For example:
“For collaborations, feedback, or student startup ideas related to campus fintech, email me at yourname@domain.com.”
This alone filters who writes to you and sets expectations.
But what if I do not have many projects yet?
This is the objection that comes up every time I talk about this with classmates. It sounds rational: “I will build a site when I have enough to show.”
The problem: “enough” is undefined, so it never arrives.
Here is a more honest approach.
Start with what you actually have (it is more than you think)
Look at the last 12-18 months. You probably have:
- Course projects that involved real data or real users.
- Hackathons or competitions you tried, even if you did not win.
- Club roles where you organized events, built something, or ran a process.
- Freelance or part-time work that produced visible results.
- Side experiments: small apps, design concepts, writing, research attempts.
Many of these are “portfolio eligible” once you describe them clearly. You do not need a unicorn startup. You need a few honest stories of you doing real work.
Your first website might just be: three course projects with better explanations and nicer screenshots than your classmates have.
Turn assignments into assets
The next time you get a project brief, think about future-you.
Ask:
- How could I structure this so that it looks good as a case study?
- Can I get permission to share parts of it publicly?
- Can I collect feedback, metrics, or user quotes?
Then, after the deadline, spend one extra hour:
- Clean up your code or slides.
- Take clear screenshots.
- Write a 300-500 word explanation and publish it on your site.
You have just converted an assignment that would have vanished into something that compounds.
Common mistakes students make with personal sites
I have broken almost all of these at some point.
1. Waiting for the perfect design before launching
Fancy design is not what makes people trust you. Clarity does.
You are better off with:
- Black text on a white background.
- Readable font, enough spacing.
- Simple navigation with 3-5 links max.
Than with:
- Heavy animations and slow load times.
- Cryptic section titles.
- Auto-playing videos or music.
If someone cannot figure out who you are and what you do in 20-30 seconds, the design has failed, no matter how artistic it looks.
2. Writing like a corporate press release
Recruiters and collaborators know when a student page sounds like it was copied from generic CV templates.
Instead of:
- “Driven and passionate aspiring leader with a proven track record of excellence.”
Try:
- “I like building small tools that make daily student life less painful. So far that has meant a budgeting app, a campus events tracker, and a script that scrapes textbook prices.”
The second version sounds like a real person who has actually done things.
3. Hiding your learning curve
There is a temptation to only show polished wins, but at student level, the learning curve is part of the story.
You can briefly mention:
- What you tried that did not work.
- Decisions you changed midway.
- Skills you had to pick up fast.
For example:
“We initially tried to build a native mobile app, then realized we did not have enough time and switched to a mobile web version. This taught us to validate the tech stack against the deadline sooner.”
This shows judgment and honest reflection, which is more valuable than pretending everything went smoothly.
4. Letting the site go stale for years
A dead website can be worse than no website if it screams “Last updated: 3 years ago.”
The fix is simple: keep your maintenance costs low.
- Remove dates from places that do not need them.
- Update once per semester with at least one new item.
- Use a setup where editing content does not require complex coding each time.
If you know you will not touch it often, design for that reality, not the fantasy of weekly blog posts.
How to build a site quickly without turning it into a multi-week project
During exam season, I tried to over-engineer my site from scratch and almost gave up. In the end, the simple route worked better.
Here are three practical paths, all valid, depending on how much you want to tinker.
Path 1: No-code website builders
Good if you want something functional in one weekend.
Common options: Squarespace, Wix, Carrd, Notion (with a custom domain), and similar tools.
Pros:
- Fast to set up, lots of templates.
- No need to manage hosting or config files.
- Easy to update without touching code.
Cons:
- Less control over low-level details.
- Monthly fees for some features or custom domains.
If you are not in a technical degree, this path is completely fine. Nobody will downgrade you for using a builder. The content still matters more than the stack.
Path 2: Simple static site (basic HTML/CSS, maybe a framework)
Good if you are in a technical field or just curious about the web.
Tools you might look at:
- Plain HTML/CSS with a minimal template.
- Static site generators like Jekyll, Hugo, or Astro.
- GitHub Pages or Netlify for free hosting.
Pros:
- More control over structure and performance.
- Shows that you are comfortable shipping code.
- Usually free or very cheap to host.
Cons:
- Small learning curve to set up.
- You need to remember how to update it every time.
If you take this route, avoid the temptation to overcomplicate it with many frameworks. Your goal is not to build a new web app. Your goal is to get a clean site online and learn a bit in the process.
Path 3: Hybrid approach (for example, Notion + custom domain)
Some students publish a Notion page and point a domain at it.
Pros:
- Very quick to create and edit.
- Good for structured content, tables, and lists.
- Low maintenance; familiar interface.
Cons:
- Limited control over layout.
- Less “custom” visually.
This is perfectly acceptable as a first version. You can always move to a more custom setup later, but at least your content and structure are defined.
Using your site as a student founder or campus builder
If you are involved in startups, clubs, or campus projects, a personal website becomes even more useful.
1. Separating you from your startup
Startups pivot. Group projects dissolve. Your name stays.
You can:
- Have a section for “Current startup” with a link to the company site.
- Archive previous projects with context about what happened.
- Show that you, the person, have a consistent way of thinking across different ventures.
This way, when your campus startup changes direction or branding, your personal narrative stays coherent.
2. Credibility for campus partnerships
When you contact:
- Student unions.
- University departments.
- Local businesses around campus.
You will often include your personal website in your email signature. People will click.
If they see:
- Your projects and past events.
- Photos or data from previous work.
- Evidence that you can actually deliver something.
Their trust in your current proposal increases quickly.
A clean site with 3 well-documented student projects beats a long, polished pitch deck with no visible track record.
3. Recruiting cofounders or teammates
Students do not always respond well to random “We are building the next big thing” messages. They want to know who is asking.
Your website helps with:
- Showing what you have shipped before.
- Clarifying what you care about beyond buzzwords.
- Making you look like someone worth spending weekend hack sessions with.
You can even create a small “Working with me” section with your collaboration style, typical roles you take, and what kinds of people you enjoy building with.
Making your site discoverable without being spammy
You do not need to become a full-time SEO person, but some small habits make it easier for the right people to find your work.
Basic search hygiene
Small technical tweaks:
- Use your full name in the page title and meta description.
- Add clear headings for sections like “Projects” and “About”.
- Use descriptive URLs (for example, /projects/campus-budget-app).
These help search engines understand your content.
Connect your site to the rest of your online presence
Wherever your name appears professionally, your domain should appear too.
Places to link your site:
- LinkedIn profile “Website” section.
- GitHub bio.
- Twitter / X / other social bios.
- Email signature.
- Conference or hackathon profiles.
This is not about self-promotion for its own sake. It is simply giving curious people a path to more context.
Publishing small pieces of content
You do not need a full blog, but you can publish:
- Short writeups (300-800 words) of project lessons.
- Reflections on competitions or hackathons.
- Notes from talks or lectures that changed how you think about building things.
This shows that you are not just consuming information, but processing it. Over time, you become “the person who writes about X” in your circle, which is a quiet form of personal branding.
What success looks like for a student personal website
It is easy to measure the wrong thing here, like raw visitor numbers or social media likes. For a student, more relevant signals look different.
Qualitative signals that your site is working
You might start to notice:
- People say, “I checked your site” in emails or conversations.
- Recruiters or mentors refer to specific projects you posted.
- New friends on campus already know what you are into from your link.
- You spend less time explaining your background and more time discussing real work.
These are weak signals, but they stack up.
Personal benefits that are easy to miss
Even if nobody visited your site, you would still be getting value from it.
A personal website forces you to articulate who you are becoming, not just what you are currently enrolled in.
Internally, you gain:
- Clarity on what types of projects energize you.
- A record of your learning that you can look back on.
- A habit of finishing and shipping, even when something feels imperfect.
It is like a public notebook that nudges you to think in terms of systems and stories rather than disconnected assignments.
Some students graduate with a CV and a LinkedIn. Others graduate with those plus a small, well-maintained corner of the internet that quietly says, “Here is who I am and what I have built so far.”
If you build that corner before you leave campus, you give yourself a compounding advantage that does not disappear when the next platform changes its algorithm.
